Frozen Karma Serenade
by SixGoldenCoins
Summary: The explosive 3-part finale to the Frozen/Hellsing series. The Battle of London rages on. A master and her servants. A priest. A Major. A butler. Two armies gather for war, and caught in the middle of it all, a Snow Queen. When it's all over, who will be left standing? Complete.
1. Chapter 1

The city of London had become a twisted work of art. The streets and buildings were the canvas, and the blood that stained the streets was the paint. The flames and smoke served as highlights, surrounding the landscape, adding highlights and dimension to the dreary exhibit.

And Enrico Maxwell, newly-appointed Archbishop of the Vatican's 9th Crusade, was the artist. The armaments of his Crusaders were his watercolors, their weapons his paintbrushes.

"Die, die, die! Kill them all!"

Hanging below a helicopter and observing the ground from within his tektite-reinforced glass barrier, Maxwell's orders boomed through his microphones. At his command, helicopters rained .50 caliber rounds down on the ruins of London, cutting down what little remained of the civilian population. The Millennium forces among them raced away, scattering before the Crusaders' onslaught.

"Filthy vermin. Feel the full force of our wrath! The power of the Vatican! The only good Protestant, is a _dead_ Protestant! _AhahahahaHA!_ "

Maxwell howled with laughter as the machine gun assault was followed up with a salvo of rockets, some aimed for the streets and some aimed for the _Deus Ex Machina,_ which drifted through the air a fair distance away. Both groupings of missiles aimed true, one incinerating vampires and humans alike in the streets, the other cracking the _Deus Ex Machina_ 's armor plating.

Maxwell was having the time of his life. At long last, the greatness he had sought for so long was within his grasp.

* * *

Tucked away in an alley, Integra Hellsing looked up at the gunships that flew overhead. The tenuous ceasefire between the Vatican and the Hellsing Organization had ended, and she was not happy.

"Maxwell...you have betrayed us."

"Sneak attacks and betrayals are just par for the course in war. In some circumstances, I'd even say praiseworthy. Especially against heathens such as yourself."

Father Alexander Anderson's words only aggravated Integra. She kept her gaze fixed ahead as he continued.

"However, this...this is different. I cannot let this pass."

Anderson's voice wavered, a tinge of anger in it.

"Maxwell, you have become enraptured by your own authority. Intoxicated by your power," he said.

Integra turned back and peered at her formally mortal enemies, the Iscariot Organization, now her unlikely allies who had helped her escape from Millennium's clutches.

"We are meant to be mere instruments of a higher power," said Anderson. "I am but a blade wielded from on high. A guillotine blade in the service of God."

It was Anderson's turn to look up at the choppers passing above them.

"But this Maxwell...what you do tonight is not in the service of God... _it is in the service of power!_ _You, Maxwell! YOU'VE TURNED YOUR BACK ON GOD!_ "

"Father Anderson," interrupted Heinkel Wolfe, one of the many Iscariot assassins assembled around the priest. "You need to focus on your mission, your orders. Maxwell wants Sir Integra Hellsing taken into custody immediately."

Prompted by Heinkel's reminder, the other Iscariots drew out their pistols, pointing them at Integra's face.

"I don't like this," muttered Anderson.

"What you like doesn't enter into it, Anderson. Understand?"

"I _still_ don't like this," Anderson replied.

Before Heinkel could respond, two brilliant beams of light, one red and the other blue, danced through the sky and streaked down into the middle of the group.

The red light landed in front of Integra, revealing itself as the vampire Seras Victoria. With her newfound power, she reached out with her shadowy arm and forced Integra's would-be captors outwards, pushing them away as if they were weightless.

The blue light landed behind Integra, forming into the queen of ice and snow. She was Elsa, queen of Arendelle, queen of the winter. A burst of ice-cold wind flew out from her, and the warrior priests which had flanked Integra from behind were thrown back.

"You all right, Sir Integra? Any injuries?" Seras asked.

"I'm adequate. How's the headquarters?"

"We were attacked by enemy soldiers. We managed to kill them all. But...the mansion has been destroyed. And...Mr. Bernadotte...he is dead, Sir."

Both Elsa and her master sensed the regret in Seras' tone, even when it was masked by the echoes of her vampiric voice.

"Yes, I see," replied Integra. "You drank from Mr. Bernadotte, didn't you? You've finally become a vampire."

Seras forced a smile and gazed back at Integra. "Yes, I have."

Heinkel drew out her own guns. Her close associate, Yumie, followed suit with her own weapon, a razor-sharp katana. They pointed them at Seras, then Elsa, and back again.

"Stand down," Anderson ordered. He came forward, asserting his leadership and authority over his soldiers. "Even with both of your power combined, those girls are way too much for you to handle."

Anderson regarded Seras with a new curiosity. She appeared different from their last encounter.

"Seras Victoria, the vampire. I've got to say, you're starting to become quite the fearsome creature."

"Yes, Father. And I'm getting stronger all the time. I don't think I'll be afraid of anything ever again."

"It's as if your eyes have become windows to a bottomless abyss. It's striking, considering how human you look otherwise. And _you_..." Anderson looked past Seras and Integra, staring into the eyes of Elsa. "You don't look as dark as when I fought you in that frozen wasteland you called a country. Did you drop the Satanism?"

"It was never me to begin with, Father. If it were, you wouldn't be standing here right now."

Anderson chuckled softly. "My healing's been upgraded since then, pagan. Normally I'd kill a godless heathen like you on the spot for speaking to me the way you just did, but now isn't the time or place, as you can see."

"You're lucky it isn't, papist. I'd hate to have to humiliate you in front of all your friends."

The animosity between the Snow Queen and the Regenerator was cut short when they all sensed something arriving. Integra, Anderson, Seras, Elsa, and the rest all looked in the direction of the River Thames, the dark presence sailing over its waters provoking a sense of dread within them.

* * *

The wrecked aircraft carrier drifted up the Thames, pushing aside all in its path. An unnatural fog surrounded the boat, floating up and around it. The ship was a cemetery now, the wreckage of the SR-71 Blackbird doubling as a tombstone and a testament to the massacre that had taken place on the deck of the ship.

With the amount of damage that had been sustained, any other vessel would have sank long before it ever reached London. But this was no longer an ordinary ship, for it was under _his_ control.

Standing on the deck of the ghost ship, the Jackal grasped in his left hand and the Casull gripped in his right, the vampire Alucard laughed. Grinning from ear to ear, his black hair and red coat blew in the wind.

Guns at the ready, Alucard sprinted to the edge of the deck and leapt off. It was a mighty leap, but for him it was effortless. The vampire flew hundreds and hundreds of feet through the air, defying Earth's gravity and laughing at nature's laws.

He cleared the massive gap and descended down into the fiery pits of what was once the mighty capital of Great Britain. He landed, nimbly, in the middle of the armies of his enemies.

Draped in hooded white robes, the faithful zealots of the 9th Crusade stood in formation, shields raised and long rifles at the ready. Opposite them were the remaining vampirized Nazis of the Last Battalion, in full battle gear, braced for the coming conflict.

Golden pages of Scripture swirled about, and in their midst emerged Alexander Anderson, bayonets held up. From above, the Captain dropped from the _Deus Ex Machina_ and fell to the ground, landing in a crouched position. Both he and Anderson walked forward through the gap between the two armies, meeting Alucard in the middle.

Alucard's smile grew wider.

* * *

"And so it came to pass, that those who had once gathered before a painted line of spears, found themselves reunited before the real thing."

His most loyal soldiers at his side, the Major stood on top of his zeppelin, marveling at the destruction below that he had caused.

"On one side, a division of _Panzergrenadier_ vampires from Germany's Third Reich: the dreaded 572 vampire soldiers of the Last Battalion. On the other side, 2975 Knights of the Roman Catholic Vatican Curia: 9th Airborne Mobile Crusade. In the middle, Her Majesty's Hellsing Organization. Just 4 of these mighty soldiers remain."

The light from the still-burning rubble of London reflected off of the Major's glasses, projecting a perfect shot of the nightmarish landscape onto the lenses.

"All is ready. The players prepare to take the stage, and the curtain rises over this _Walpurgis_ dawn."

* * *

" _My lord and master! Integra Hellsing! Give me your orders!_ "

"Alucard, take heed..."

From the relative safety of a rooftop stood Integra, Seras and Elsa. At their vantage point the Hellsing women viewed the collective below, ready for battle.

"...here are your orders. Your silver gun shall stain the white army crimson. Your iron gun shall stain the black army scarlet. I would know my foes by the stains of red you leave upon their chests. Now search and destroy! _Search, and destroy!_ _Run them down! Do not let any of them leave the island alive!_ "

Even in a whisper, Integra could hear Alucard's voice trailing up to her.

"My master...it shall be done. As you command."

"Release Control Art Restriction 0. Announce your return. Say the words and release your full power. Now!"

Elsa saw a cold blue mist, not unlike something she might have made, blow out of the vampire's mouth. And with a voice steeled for what was to come, Alucard spoke.

" _I am...the Bird of Hermes._ "

A ways off, the SR-71 on the deck of the aircraft carrier started crumbling. The fuselage fell away, exposing what lay within: a coffin incsribed with a glowing white sigil. Its lid moved aside.

" _HERE STANDETH THE BIRD OF HERMES, EATING MY OWN WINGS..._ "

With a yell, Alexander Anderson hurled a handful of his blessed blades at the vampire. The Captain added his own spinning kick, delivering a heavy blow upon his enemy.

It was all the others needed. The Last Battalion and the Crusaders rushed forward, readying their guns and firing into Alucard, now shifting into something entirely different.

Anderson leapt into the air, preparing for another attack.

"It's as if everyone here can feel it coming," he thought aloud. "Something terrible is about to happen. If we can't put this monster down, we may all be doomed."

"... _TO KEEP...MYSELF TAME._ "

* * *

" _More tea, Your Majesty?"_

 _"No thank you, Kai. I've already had 5 cups of that stuff, and it isn't helping."_

 _Agdar set aside his cup and saucer for his servant to take. Kai took it, but he stopped, concerned._

 _"In my humble opinion, sir, you need not be worried. Transylvania is an extremely distant land. Even if this man was bent on conquest, he would never make his way here."_

 _"That thing is not a man, Kai. It's a monster. And we aren't equipped to deal with something like it."_

 _The king of Arendelle reached for the bottle of wine on his desk._

 _"What of the..." Kai dropped his voice. "...the princess?"_

 _"She's only a child, Kai. And the notion of my own daughter...used as what? A weapon of war?"_

 _"Begging your pardon, my king. But perhaps, in time her...gift...may be used to defend against something such as him?"_

 _Agdar leaned back in his chair, loosening the top button of his tunic._

 _"Maybe. But that must be left up to her. What she chooses to do with her abilities, will ultimately be her decision. I only hope she will use them for the good of everyone."_

 _The king stared into the bottle, swishing the dark red liquid inside it._

 _"...I suppose you're right, Kai. For now, he's Transylvania's problem. Hopefully someone will put that thing out of its misery."_

* * *

Mystic cards sliced through Nazi faces. Magic bullets blasted away Crusader heads. And in the middle of it all was the writhing black mass of eyes, teeth, and tendrils, growing in size and threatening to swallow all in its path.

What was left of the North Mountain, absorbed from the skirmish in Arendelle, rained down on the enemy troops. A storm of rocks and boulders smashed through groups of soldiers, utterly crushing them.

Its appearance alternating between liquid and fire, the twisted darkness washed down on its foes, absorbing their essences. The edges of it pooled around the foundations of the surrounding buildings, and soon, the souls that had been locked away for centuries emerged. Rising up out of their mass grave, the legions of the dead moaned, hungering for living flesh.

"No. Stop it! It's impossible! How can something like that exist?!"

Enrico Maxwell, safe inside his glass shield, was horrified. Never in all of his years serving the Vatican had he seen such a thing as the chaotic entity that stirred below him. Not even in his worst nightmares.

Even Father Alexander Anderson felt fear within himself. On the blasted cobblestone streets he stood, revulsed.

"No matter how hard we try, we're never going to be able to kill you, are we? How many people have you consumed in your time on Earth? How many lost souls are trapped within you?" he shouted at the black mass.

More ghouls arose, on horseback and coated with armor, and armed with spears, swords, shields and bows; an army fit for an undead king.

Maxwell started to shake involuntarily.

"...it can't be...you've consumed them! Your own soldiers! Your own subjects! You're a fiend! A monster! A devil! You... _DRACULA!_ "

The darkness in the streets moved aside, revealing the being that Maxwell spoke of.

Dressed in black armor, Count Dracula raised his arms. At his command rose the rest of his army, the souls he had carried within him for centuries.

Riding on snorting demonic horses, they charged forth. The beating of hooves and clanking of armor filled the air. Along with the rest of the ghouls, Dracula's army moved as a collective force, rushing through the streets of London and bearing down on their hapless opponents.

"Full perimeter defence! Square up! Close formation!"

"Kill it! Everyone open fire!"

"Open fire!"

Commanders of both the Last Battalion and the Crusaders screamed orders at their troops.

Their bullets did nothing to stop the waves of undead that came at them. Both the Papal Knights and the vampires were quickly overcome. Some tried to run, but it was futile. Dracula's familiars overtook them. The armies, Catholic and Nazi alike, were being destroyed. Some were seized and eaten, some were crushed underfoot, some were stabbed through with spears.

The only forces untouched were the Vatican's air support.

"Fire! Fire! It's a nightmare down there! It's Hell! We keep shooting, and it keeps coming!"

Playing cards sped through the air, cutting through the helicopters like they were paper. Accompanying the cards, a magic bullet zigzagged about, taking down more choppers.

The consumed souls of Tubalcain Alhambra and Rip Van Winkle smiled at their handiwork. Where they once aligned themselves against Dracula, they now found themselves under his control. Just like the rest of Dracula's familiars, they existed only to serve him now.

* * *

"Let's go, Seras. The Count awaits us down below."

At Integra's order, Seras started to leave with her. But they were stopped by Elsa's voice.

"My master..."

Integra turned around, Elsa bowed before her.

"...your orders?"

Integra glanced up at the helicopter with the glass case hanging from it, then at the _Deus Ex Machina,_ which had been silently hovering above everything, its occupants quietly observing the unfolding carnage all the while.

"Take down that zealot in the chopper. Then I want you to get rid of the zeppelin. They're both eyesores."

Elsa stood up, her hands glowing with blue light.

"It shall be done, my master."

Seras jumped from the rooftop, carrying Integra with her and leaving Elsa standing alone.

The Snow Queen took a moment to herself to view the awakened souls running through the streets below. They moved as one, fought as one, and killed as one.

There must have been millions of them. Queen Elsa saw all types of different ghouls, dressed in all manners of different clothing, rotting imitations of what they once were in life. Some wore military uniforms, some wore peasants clothing, some were dressed like royalty.

Others didn't even resemble a human. Strange creatures of unknown origin were among the writhing crowds, with some looking like mutated human hands, others as a type of weird starfish, and still others as a sort of hybrid between fungus and spiders. But no matter their appearance, at some point in history they had all fallen to Dracula's power, their blood and soul absorbed by him.

It was time. With no effort at all, Elsa sent an ice spike flying straight at Archbishop Maxwell's helicopter.

* * *

" _Our lines are crumbling! Bishop, please order a withdraw! We're being slaughtered! BISHOP!"_

"SHUT...UP!" Enrico Maxwell screamed through the microphones at the commander. "Stop calling me that! You address me as _Archbishop!_ "

His helicopter exploded as something crashed into it, and Maxwell plunged down to the hard ground. But his barrier remained intact, shielding him from the worst of the impact. Even so, it may have been better if he had died from the fall, for he was now in a far worse situation.

His microphones were broken and the truck that the barrier had rested on was reduced to worthless scrap. Ghouls clawed at Maxwell's glass barrier, desiring the tasty meat that lay inside.

The Archbishop recoiled in terror, but when he saw that the structure was holding the dead back, he smiled.

"This is hardened tektite-compound reinforced glass! You won't even be able to scratch it!"

A bayonet glinted in the sky, then flew down and pierced through the glass, almost getting Maxwell's head in the process. Cracks in the glass spread out from where the bayonet was stuck through.

Through the shattering glass, Maxwell saw the priest standing atop a hill of rubble, regarding the Archbishop with a stern gaze.

"Anderson!"

The ghouls started closing in.

" _Anderson!_ "

"We are the soldiers of Iscariot. We are the instruments of God's wrath on Earth. Together we march in lockstep to shatter the dreams of the unrighteous and unholy."

Cold, rotting hands grasped Maxwell.

"Goodbye, my friend..." said Anderson.

" _Ah! AAAAH!_ "

Maxwell's ground forces had been consumed, his air support had been blasted out of the sky, and his dream of claiming London for the Vatican had been broken. So he did the only thing he could do.

He begged.

"Anderson! _Anderson! ANDERSON!_ "

Maxwell reached out his hand in desperation.

"Save me! Alexander! Please! Please sir!"

His only response was a cold, unfeeling expression from the paladin.

"PLEASE, S-"

Words were replaced with wet gasps as spears erupted from the ground, puncturing the Archbishop's lungs. He was raised up into the air on a bed of long spikes, his arms and eyes twitching madly as he watched his own blood fall back down to him.

 _Is this it? Am I to die here? Alone?_

Maxwell held his barely functional arm to the sky.

 _No...no. I was born alone. I don't want to die alone._

His arm, and the life in his eyes, fell away.

 _Jesus..._.

As the priest walked through the crowd of parted ghouls, he remembered the first day Maxwell came to his orphanage. He remembered the angry young boy that wondered why his parents had abandoned him to the Church, the same boy that promised he would become great one day, that he would have his revenge on all who had wronged him.

Anderson knelt near the slain Maxwell, the eyes of his corpse clouded over.

"You are such a foolish boy," Anderson whispered. "A stupid, foolish boy."

He moved his hand over Maxwell's eyelids, sealing them shut. Then, he stood up and walked off, leaving the fallen Archbishop behind.

"This is Father Anderson, calling all paladins. We're returning to the Vatican. The 9th Crusade Expeditionary Force _Reconquista_ has been completely destroyed. Dawn's approaching. Our dreams are dashed. We're returning to the Vatican."

From the other end of his earpiece came Heinkel's voice.

" _Anderson. You're not serious?_ "

"It's not your place to die here. Retreat! Return to the Vatican! Protect the Pope! Protect the Church, 'til the End Days! As for me..."

Anderson sized up the sea of ghouls, who still made no move to attack him.

"...I'm going to be staying behind. I will find Alucard, and _I will defeat him_."

" _Anderson! What do you think is going to happen if you fight him?!_ " Yumie protested over the line.

"It doesn't matter. It's now, or never. Finally, Alucard has unlocked the last of the restraints upon his power. He's finally in a form I may be able to do damage to. The last of his demonic powers have finally been laid bare. He has dispatched all the warriors from his stronghold. Right now, the lord of the manor stands alone. For the first time, I can face a single vampire in combat. _Dracula stands alone._ "

The ghouls grew more restless, and Anderson glared at the _Deus Ex Machina_ , floating high above the city.

"This...all this was the sole objective of that mad battalion commander. It was a giant sacrifice designed to make Alucard vulnerable. A thousand SS soldiers, 3000 Crusaders, a million British citizens, all of them, friend and foe alike. And finally, he knew I'd be here."

With a wave of his hand, more of Anderson's shining papers of holy text spun around and rustled in the wind.

"Farewell gentlemen. Do not weep for Maxwell, the poor hapless fool."

Some pages of Scripture settled gently around Maxwell's lifeless body.

"He died as he lived: a spineless coward. Farewell, and may we meet again in Limbo."

His friends tried to call out to him over his earpiece, but Anderson removed it and crushed it under his foot.

Suddenly he felt colder, and he knew who was near him. It was the only person who, right now, could make him turn his back on an army of ghouls to look.

"Ice witch."

"Fanatic."

Two bayonets slid out of Anderson's sleeves. He held them tightly in his hands, and for a second considered switching his priorities to the Snow Queen. But instead, he only spoke back to her.

"Was that you who brought Maxwell's helicopter down?"

"It was," Elsa replied.

"...good. Someone had to put him down..."

The two stared up at the _Deus Ex Machina_.

"Tell me, heathen...what's your stake in all of this?" Anderson asked.

Elsa shut her eyes, thinking of her long life and all of the events that had led up to this point.

"We all have our reasons...I do this in remembrance of what once was. And my gifts...my curse...it's caused so much death and destruction. I failed the people closest to me..."

Elsa had no idea why she was even telling this to Anderson. Neither of them shared anything in common, but she continued anyway.

"...this is all I have now. The only way I can atone for my past. Maybe one day, I'll make it up to them."

"There's no atonement for things like you, witch. Even so..." Anderson thought aloud, "...you seem to at least have a conscience. Maybe if you kill yourself out of repentance, the Almighty will deem it fit to send you to Purgatory. Either way, do us all a favor..."

"Yes?"

"Get that damned airship out of the sky. Even I'm sick of looking at it. As for me, I have a score to settle with the vampire."

"You won't survive. Not against him," said Elsa.

"Maybe not. But there's no going back now. Now..." Anderson turned back to the hordes of ghouls "...off with you. I have a vampire to kill."

Elsa watched Anderson leap over some ghouls, turn a corner and run out of sight, the undead servants of Dracula hot on his heels.

The power welled up within Elsa, the familiar charging of arcane magic that originated within her very being and radiated out from her.

The winter was begging for release, and Elsa granted it that release. A charged bolt of blue shot from her hand, several large shards of ice spinning through the air. The giant projectiles spun to their target: the _Deus Ex Machina_ , which was about to be blown to pieces.

The ice fell short, not even making it halfway to its destination before being broken apart by an invisible force.

Elsa stood in disbelief. Mystified, she threw another wave of hardened snowflakes at the zeppelin. They, too, were stopped dead in their tracks, shattering to pieces in mid-flight.

The Snow Queen frowned and flexed her hands, then did a running jump up to the waiting airship.

If she couldn't shoot it out of the air, then she would snap it apart with her hands.

* * *

"And so the Winter Goddess comes flying to our doorstep. Skadi, mother of the wind and snow, is now arriving to unleash nature's fury upon us."

Still standing on top of his airborne base, the Major looked down at the approaching queen, somewhat amused.

"Tell me, _herr_ Doctor..."

"Sir?"

"...are the experiments ready?"

The Doctor smirked. "Yes, my Major. They are ready for field deployment, per your order."

"Then it is time. Go back inside and prepare them for battle. Warrant officer Schrödinger will assist you."

"But Major! I hate doing chores! Haven't I done enough already?"

" _Tsk tsk_. Now is not the time for laziness, my boy. Our plans are reaching their spectacular conclusion."

"Our commander is right, _herr_ Schrödinger. Come, let us prepare."

The werecat followed the Doctor through the air hatch, into the ship's interior, just as Elsa landed on the roof.

The Major raised a hand in greeting.

" _Guten tag, fräulein_. You arrived later than expected, hm? I don't blame you for getting away from it all, it is much nicer up here, is it not?"

"You seem a bit too cheerful for a man who's about to die," Elsa growled.

"Not at all, my dear. For today will not be my death, but rather..." the Major glared back at her "... _yours_."

It all happened so fast. Something swiped through Elsa's leg, slicing clean through it. She fell, shocked. But whatever it was, she wasn't about to let it stop her.

Turquoise energies flowed and in less than a second, Elsa's leg had regenerated and she was back on her feet. She looked around, and saw what had attacked her.

A man, standing at the other end of the zeppelin. A man, dressed all in black, in a butler's attire.

A man in a monocle, ponytail blowing in the wind, surrounded by blue wires that hovered around him.

Elsa couldn't believe her eyes.

"Walter?!"

"Excellent work, my butler. Please get this ugly thing out of our sight."

Walter moved in front of the Major, who headed down the same hatch as Schrödinger and the Doctor.

 _"_ Walter?" Elsa repeated. "What the hell are you doing here?! With them?! What...why..."

Circling each other, Elsa and Walter were each ready to unleash an attack on the other; Elsa with her icy winter magic, Walter with a hundred microfilament wires.

"Why not?"

Walter's wires ensnared the Snow Queen, picking her up off the zeppelin and throwing her back down to the hard ground. She slammed straight through the roof of a building and all the way down to the ground level, hitting it so hard that it collapsed on top of her.

In the half-second it took for Elsa to punch up through the debris, Walter had already joined her on the streets.

"You're the last person I would have expected."

"It's always the way, isn't it Elsa? Given your past I thought you would have known that by now," Walter said. The wires danced around him, controlled like they were extensions of his own body. "Still, I suppose I can't blame you. Not even Alucard suspected me."

Elsa threw a flurry of icicles at Walter, but he sidestepped most of them. The remainder he blocked with his wires, woven together into glowing shields.

Walter responded with his own attack, lifting eight or nine abandoned vehicles off of the roads and pitching them at Elsa. The Snow Queen blasted each of them aside, waiting for the biggest vehicle, a semi truck, to come to her. She grabbed it and swung it around, throwing it right back at her opponent.

A single blue wire sliced through the truck, splitting it vertically. Its halves fell to either side of Walter.

Elsa knew she wasn't going to win like this. She generated a wall of ice in front of her, and ran into an alley out of Walter's sight.

The barrier was easily broken down by Walter, but he did not see her behind it.

"There's no point in hiding from me. I _will_ find you, one way or the other."

Walter began to cleave away the ruined concrete facades, one of which he knew the queen was hiding behind, when he heard an odd noise in the air behind him.

It was the flapping of wings, unsheathing of blades and drawing of bowstrings. Walter spun around and looked up.

A small army of winged humanoid women were swooping down at him, their feathered wings gliding on the wind's current. Their skin was tinged with blue, a hint at their origin.

"The valkyries, Snow Queen? Really? You can't fight me face to face, and so you summon little bird people to send after me? How... _pathetic._ "

Walter waved his hand in dismissal. His wires followed his motion, breaking through valkyrie armor, weapons, bone and flesh. He watched as their remains fell out of the sky, splattering against the ground in a gruesome mess.

"Your people believed them to choose who would live and die in battle, is that right, Elsa? Well..."

Walter spoke to empty air, but he knew she was somewhere, listening.

"...perhaps they did. But I am Walter C. Dornez, the Angel of Death. And even the souls of the gods, I may reap as I see fit."

" _That's right, keep talking, you bastard..._ "

Undetected behind a big pile of debris, Elsa aimed her crossbow, the _Ichaival_ , at the back of Walter's skull. She pressed the trigger.

The crossbow blew apart, taking both of her hands with it and sending her flying back.

"Never trust another to choose your weapon for you, Elsa. Don't you remember who created that gun for you?" Walter said coolly, slowly making his way to her.

Elsa rose to her feet, her hands already healed and shining with more magic. But she never got the chance to release it, for more wires wrapped around her body.

Walter sent her crashing through the side of another skyscraper, pulling her through concrete, steel, wood and plaster. She flew through the other side and fell at Walter's feet.

The Queen of Winter stared up at Walter. He was so close. She rushed him, the knife of frost in her hand aimed right at his face.

Walter sidestepped it so quickly that she didn't even see him move. One moment he was right in front of her, the next he was off to her side, a wire extended above the ground to trip her. Elsa hit the ground face-first.

Now she was angry. She got back up and attacked Walter once more, hurling volleys of her magic at him.

But he was fast. Impossibly fast. Even faster than she was. So fast, that even her godly eyes couldn't see him.

"Too slow. You're _far_ too slow."

Walter stood a few dozen feet behind Elsa, balanced perfectly on one of Alucard's spears.

"Alucard spoke very highly of you, Snow Queen. He told me of a great and terrible Ice Goddess that tore through her enemies like a hurricane tearing through grass. He told me of a feared Winter Spirit that commanded the wind and sky itself, a Spirit that lay waste to entire armies. But I must say..." Walter removed his monocle and polished it on his vest, "...I believe he was exaggerating. Here I was, expecting a pitched battle, and all I encounter is a musty, forgotten deity that can't even put up a proper fight."

"I'm just getting warmed up, bastard."

"Yes, I'm sure you are." Walter hopped off the spike and started walking away. "Much as I would like you to die by my hand, those are not my orders. I was to merely soften you up, while the other two finish you off."

"...what?"

"I will have the pleasure of ending Alucard's life. But for you...the Major has something different in mind. Farewell, goddess."

Walter made his exit as two figures dropped out of the bottom of the _Deus Ex Machina._

One of them landed far to Elsa's left, one of them to her far right. In her peripheral vision, she saw the two individuals standing there, not moving a muscle.

Elsa turned to her left.

It was a man, dressed in a dark robe, his face hidden behind a white, featureless mask. Nasty-looking blades were fixed to the gauntlets on his forearms. The swastika, a symbol now familiar to queen of Arendelle, was emblazoned on the armband on the man's left arm.

Elsa turned to her right.

This one was definitely female, garbed in a kind of Gothic wedding dress. Frills covered the hem and long sleeves, and like her male counterpart, her face was also obscured, a black funeral shroud covering her. Her left arm sported its own red Nazi banner.

The woman snapped her gloved fingers, and the area turned black.

* * *

The Jackal ripped a hole into Anderson's left arm, exposing sinew and spraying some of his blood onto the pavement. But it did not deter the man of Iscariot. He cut down a few ghouls as their master leapt back, sailing well past the demonic crowds and landing behind them.

Anderson grimaced when another magical bullet zigzagged around and shot through his chest, then yelled when a group of playing cards sliced into him as they flew past him.

"Now what? What will you do? Your Dragon stands before you, Catholic." Alucard's eyes glared at his foe, a brilliant red glare. "You're going to defeat me, is that right? What do you think your chances are? One in a hundred? One in a thousand? In ten thousand? A million? A billion, maybe?"

" _I am more than prepared to destroy you, you monster_ ," Anderson snarled. " _No matter what the odds are against me._ "

* * *

The Major smiled as he heard the desperate cries of his men through the speakers of his control room. They shouted about running out of ammunition and losing contact with platoons. But to their leader, it was all just background noise.

"Oh butler, mix me up some Van Houten cocoa and bring it right away. And don't hold back on the cream and sugar."

Walter Dornez, returned to his new master's side, bowed to the Major, then headed to the kitchens.

"London has been destroyed, the Crusaders have all perished, and the Last Battalion is dying in the streets," gloated the Major. "Elsa and Alucard are _down there_. And I sit... _up here_."

He looked up at the screens. One showed Anderson standing before Alucard and his ghouls, the other showed Elsa trapped in a field of darkness.

"It's perfection. Everything is proceeding just as I planned."

* * *

At least when Zorin Blitz attacked her, Queen Elsa of Arendelle could still see, albeit only illusions. But now, she could not see anything, not even her own hand in front of her face. Blackness filled her vision, and she could not determine the way forward.

A blade cut into Elsa's back as her assailant ran past. Any ordinary blade wouldn't have even been able to injure her, but this one actually caused her pain; it was not a physical pain, but rather something that affected her on the mental level.

Somewhere in the dark the man hit her again, this time in the chest. Elsa quickly surmised that he was attacking her with some kind of psychic weapon, but she had no time to react.

Her attacker dealt a third blow to her head and she was sent reeling. Her body had no problems healing from the physical wounds caused by these swords, but she had difficulty recovering from what it was doing to her emotions.

With each strike, she felt her will fade. If she wanted to walk away from this, she would have to act swiftly.

Elsa sent out an omnidirectional blast of ice, and the resulting inhuman howl of agony told her she had found her mark.

The field of darkness dissipated, and Elsa's vision returned. She looked at the woman, lying face down on the ground, an icicle protruding from her.

The Snow Queen slowly walked up to the spellcaster, picked her up by the neck and removed her veil.

The woman was in a state of decomposition, looking like one of Alucard's ghouls. But her canines and incisors were much longer; the telltale sign of a vampire.

Were it not for the woman's hair, Elsa may not have even realized who she really was at first. But there was no mistaking the dark brown color of the strands of hair, or the crown braid that the woman always styled it into.

Idunn's eyes opened. The warm face of mother that had once peered into a blonde-haired infant's crib long ago, was now the gaunt, screeching face of a monster that swiped at its child with sharp claws.

Elsa held her mother in the air at arm's length. She felt her emotions change, but this time it was not caused by any weapon striking her.

A lump rose in Elsa's throat.

"Mom...mom, please stop this. It's me...Elsa..."

The struggling thing would not listen. Its shrieks only grew louder, its thrashing more violent.

"Please...I don't want to do this. _Mom_..."

" _SSSKKKKKKKRRREEEEEEE-"_

Idunn's head fell to the ground, her decapitated body soon joining it when Elsa let go.

The queen turned around just in time to catch the man's arms, tearing the gauntlets off of him and breaking his weapons in two.

She already knew who he was, but she swatted his mask aside all the same.

The undead face of King Agdar stared back at her, looking even more skeletal than his wife.

Agdar took a step toward his daughter, but stopped. His eyes went wide, appearing as a man that had just realized he was living in a nightmare. He looked down at himself, and surveyed his hands, his legs, his feet.

He fell to his knees, and gradually moved his head up to look at his daughter.

" _Eeeeee...Eeeeellllsssaaaaa..._ "

Elsa gritted her teeth as Agdar ripped open the cloth around his chest, exposing his rotting chest cavity, and his beating black heart infused with the Doctor's forbidden science.

" _Kkkillll...kill meeeeeee..._ "

She couldn't stand it any longer. Elsa drove a cold stake into him, piercing his heart.

Bleeding out in his death throes, Agdar crawled over to his wife, gently took hold of her hand, and collapsed.

Elsa watched blue flames engulf both of their corpses and knelt before the funeral pyre of her parents.

She had lost them all over again.

* * *

Prince Hans of the Southern Isles was never the type to face great danger head-on. In his life he preferred to wait for opportunity to present itself before making a decision.

In a way, he still followed that train of thought, even as a mindless ghoul. Not consciously, of course. Now he was just another one of Dracula's minions, mindless fodder for battle.

Hans shuffled about with a group of his fellow ghouls, slowly walking up behind Father Alexander Anderson, who was still kneeling, bleeding and gasping for air.

Prince Hans reached for Anderson. The priest spun around on his feet and swiftly chopped down the zombified prince, as well as three other ghouls.

The undead, 13th prince of the forgotten Southern Isles fell down dead (truly dead this time), just another impure soul that had been cut down by Saint Guillotine.

" _What's the matter, Christian? YOUR DRAGON IS WAITING!_ "

Anderson stirred at Alucard's voice.

"You're bruised and bleeding. Your arm is hanging by a few strands of meat," said Alucard. "What are you going to do? Will you die like a dog? Or on your feet, like a man?"

"What does it matter, vampire?" Anderson replied. He bit onto his sleeve, holding up his useless arm with his teeth. " _You think a cut on my arm will stop me? Now shut up, and come at me! Come on, fight me! Hurry! HURRY!_ "

As Anderson brandished two more bayonets, Alucard smiled slightly.

"Excellent...humans are such fascinating creatures..."

Anderson charged forward, cutting a swath through Alucard's servants. With each sweeping motion of his bayonets, he took down a few more un-lives. But it wasn't enough.

" _Exploding chain!_ "

The priest threw a group of bayonets, each one linked by a chain, into the crowds. The tip of each bayonet exploded, blowing bigger groups of ghouls to pieces, creating a path for Anderson to navigate.

" _I want more! More! More, more, MORE!_ "

Alucard watched Anderson slice apart more of his servants.

 _What kind of man is this? He reminds me so much...of those_ other _men..._

Alucard grinned again.

" _Yes. Come to me, Alexander Anderson! Like those other men in that far distant time, come and stand before my gaze. And as that man did long ago, try and run me through and pierce my heart!_ "

A large, muscular ghoul stepped in between Alucard and Anderson, grunting aggressively.

"OUT OF MY WAY!" Anderson yelled. He stabbed his weapon into the ghoul's mouth as hard as he could, but it was not good enough.

The ghoul grabbed Anderson and held him in place with supernatural strength.

The priest saw Alucard's horsemen ride towards him, spears pointed right at him for a killing stroke. Anderson steeled himself, facing his own death with as much courage as he could muster.

A hail of bullets saved him from impalement, blessed rounds hitting the ghouls on horseback and the stronger one that held him.

"Damn it, I said LEAVE! You stupid meddling idiots!" Anderson yelled at the gathered Iscariots.

"And what did you expect us to do?" Heinkel shot back. "Just pack everything up and run back to the Vatican? What sad sort of thing would that make us? Because none of us would be soldiers of Iscariot anymore!"

" _'By the cry "Amen!" and the slaughter of the unworthy, the world slippeth back into place!'_ Those are the words you taught us, aren't they?" came Yumie's voice. She appeared from behind the larger ghoul, having just finished slicing his head in half with her katana. "Did you think we would abandon our righteousness? _You_ are the idiot."

"You are such a fool!" Anderson shouted back. "I just wanted someone to survive, carry on with our work! Too many have gone to Limbo today!"

He turned back to face the ghouls once again.

"...but since I'm charging full speed into Hell, I might as well have some company. Guess we're going to do this together, then. Let's tell them who we are!"

" _We are the soldiers of Iscariot! We are Judas Iscariot!_ "

Anderson and his comrades ran forward, back into the ghoulish fray.

* * *

"Countless little lives struggle and writhe together."

The Major sipped his cocoa, looking at his screens.

"Like tiny cells making up a great beast, struggling towards its own illumination. Seeking blood whilst spilling blood. Continuously multiplying and receding, fighting against itself without end."

He set his cup down on its saucer.

"Whether they seek that enlightenment through the faith in a God, or in the name of Nazism, or even in the creatures called Elsa and Alucard. We are now all united by the same thing. It's a dream come true, isn't it?"

The Major saluted.

" _My dark brethrens!_ "

He glanced at the screen displaying Elsa, and watched her leave the burning corpses of her parents behind her.

"Yes, that is right. Return to your comrades, little Snow Queen. Return to them and move ever closer to your own demise..."

* * *

"'Til death! Go to Hell!"

"Amen!"

Paladins pulled out the pins on their vests and passed away in an explosive inferno, taking hordes of ghouls with them.

Anderson jumped through the smoke and landed before Alucard. He stuck his bayonets in the ground.

"You stand before me...I'm impressed. I'm impressed, Iscariot. _Show me more, Alexander Anderson!_

Father Anderson produced a thin wooden box and held it up in his hand.

"You are not the only one that carries a mighty weapon, vampire."

"So is this the toy that's going to defeat me?"

Anderson answered him by crushing the box in his palm, revealing the white spike within.

"A nail?" Alucard did not look happy. "The Shroud of Turin. The Holy Grail. The Lance of Longinus. Should I assume that you're threatening me with the last of the Holy Artifacts of Rome?"

" _Oh, yes._ "

"It still smells of blood and miracle. _The Nail of Helena._ "

" _Prepare!_ " Anderson pointed the Nail at himself, preparing to stab himself with it.

" _Anderson! STOP IT! Do you know what that thing will do to you?!_ _You'll become one of God's monsters!_ " Alucard angrily said. " _Maintain your humanity! Don't succumb to power! Either side, it amounts to the same deal! Whether in the name of the divine or the demonic, you're still a monster in the end! Do you intend to use that scrap of miracle to become nothing but a scrap of miracle yourself?_ "

Anderson did not lower his arm. Alucard clenched his fists.

" _This duel...between us...would you really push it this far? Into the realms that lie beyond mortal life? A monster such as myself...a creature of such weakness that I could not bear the weight of a human life...if I am to be defeated it must be by a human._ "

Alucard's voice softened.

"Don't do it, human. Don't become a monster...a monster like me."

Anderson moved the Nail closer and spoke.

"I want nothing more than to be a bayonet. A bayonet, wielded by the hand of God. I would have been happy to have been born a storm, or a divine threat. A mighty explosion or even a terrible hurricane. A divine force of nature without a heart, or pity. And if this relic can transform me into such a thing...then I am happy to abandon my humanity."

He fell to his knees and stabbed the Nail into his chest. A few seconds passed, and thin vines started growing from the Nail.

"You...you fool..."

Alucard marched down to Anderson, gripping his guns tightly in his hands.

" _YOU BLOODY FOOL!_ "

Alucard's arm was cut away right as he aimed the Casull at Anderson, followed by his head. The vampire fired the Jackal and blasted a hunk of flesh away from the priest's face. As both of them regenerated, Alucard looked on with rage as he saw what Anderson had done to himself.

More vines covered Anderson's face.

"It's thorns..." said Yumie. "All thorns."

"Anderson...what in God's name have you done to yourself?!" the shocked Heinkel asked.

" _His body is no longer that of a man's,_ " Alucard answered. " _The only way either of us may return to dust is to have it gouged out of us. The sickness...in our hearts._ "

"Father Anderson!"

"Anderson!"

A wall of thorns held up bayonets. A wall of darkness held up two guns.

Alucard fired again and again at Anderson. The transformed paladin stabbed him through, and the vampire responded with a shot to the arm.

Both of their wounds healed instantly. Alucard lunged out with a shadowy limb, but it was pushed back by a spiky vine.

Alucard focused on the Nail, still sticking out of Anderson's chest. His eyes narrowed. He stared down the Jackal's sights, and fired right at the Nail.

Anderson hunched over as the round hit him, but he just smiled as it spun in place, unable to penetrate any further.

The monster of God leapt into the air, thousands more vines surrounding him. He was now no longer a man, nor demon. Neither day, nor night.

Alucard aimed the Jackal upwards to his foe, just as the bayonet cleaved into his head.

He dropped the gun, and vines wrapped around his neck.

A sea of flames engulfed the remaining ghouls, as well as the vampire Alucard.

The last thing he heard was the voice of his fledgling.

" _Master!_ "


	2. Chapter 2

_"All flesh is grass, and all the comeliness thereof as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of our God abideth forever."_

 _The Count vomited blood up his throat as Abraham drove two feet of wood into his chest. It pierced him through, puncturing his black heart that had not beat for centuries._

 _He stared up at Abraham._

 _"Have I been...bested, sir?"_

 _A red tear rolled down the Count's face._

 _"Yes, you are bested. This is not a nightmare you will be awaking from," replied Abraham. "Your castles are plundered, your dominions in ruin...your servants destroyed. And the girl has fled this place forevermore. She will never be yours, Count!"_

 _Abraham raised his fist in the air and brought it down on the end of the stake, forcing it even deeper into his foe's body._

 _The Count fell backward, crying with anguish before he was grabbed by his cape._

 _"You are judged, and found wanting, Vampire King," Abraham said. " You have nothing. You_ are _nothing._ Nothing _!"_

 _Abraham didn't know it, but he was wrong. The Count could have ended his life in a countless number of agonizing ways._

 _The Count could have taken over his mind and forced him to shoot himself with his own revolver. He could have torn both of his arms from their sockets and let him bleed to death. He could have cut off the oxygen from every cell in his body._

 _He could have ripped out the vampire hunter's throat before he ever knew he had even been touched. He could have called upon the legions of dead souls within to devour him. He could have ripped open a chasm in the Earth and watched him fall to his death._

 _But the Count, though a monster, was still a gentleman. And this man, this mere mortal, Van Helsing, had faced him and emerged victorious, motivated purely by camaraderie and faith in his God. He had driven a stake through the heart of his undead enemy, and killed him._

 _Not his body, not his rotting soul, but his pride._

 _Those were the rules, and Abraham Van Helsing had played by them. And Dracula could only play along._

 _Those were the rules._

 _Abraham was wrong, and yet he was right. The Count was something, yet he was nothing. He was a fleeting shadow in the guise of a human, a pale imitation of life. A monster._

 _Dracula shut his eyes as the sun rose into the sky, casting shadows of gravestones onto him. Monuments to the departed, throwing their darkness over him._

 _He hoped that Van Helsing would do the right thing, and let him join them._

* * *

Queen Elsa of Arendelle leapt over a building, just in time to be assaulted by a wall of thorns.

Rope-like vines, thick with spikes, snaked all around her. She landed on another abandoned rooftop and cast her magic: dancing swords of ice which swung to and fro, cutting into the thorns, swiping them away.

Like the Hydra, two more thorns sprouted for every one that was cut away. Elsa summoned even more swords, trying to buy herself enough time to clear a path to the source of the thorns below: Father Alexander Anderson, the monster of God, possessed by Helena's Nail.

The queen saw her window of opportunity. She swatted a few more vines away from her, and let her blades do the rest. She jumped off the building, landing some distance from Anderson.

Seras Victoria was already there, her hand held firmly on the blade of Anderson's bayonet that had cut into Alucard's head.

"Master!" she cried.

Vines crept to Seras' arm.

" _Aaauughgh!_ "

Holy fire seared her, but no amount of pain would make her let go. Not now.

Elsa ran forward and put her own hand on the bayonet, adding her own strength. Arctic winds blew forth, their cold pushing back the fire and thorns, giving Seras relief from her pain. Anderson's mutated face scowled.

 _It's burning_ , Integra thought, as she watched the remaining ghouls roast away in the blessed inferno. _His whole world is burning away._

Seras and the Snow Queen struggled to hold back the transformed Anderson. Even with their strength combined, the power of Helena's Nail threatened to overcome them.

As Elsa stared into the priest's face, she saw an empty shell stare back. Vines and branches repeatedly embedded themselves deep in the paladin's face, a miniature forest spreading its roots through the ground. Anderson's flesh was their soil, his blood their water. He truly was a monster now, beyond humanity. No different than Alucard. No different than Seras.

No different than Elsa.

More flames erupted on Alucard's body.

" _Master!_ " Seras screamed. " _MASTER!_ "

"Stop yelling, police girl. Why must you always insist on making such an awful racket? You're liable to wake the dead."

Seras' eyes widened, then she smiled in relief.

"My master."

Alucard's hand reached up, clasping down on the blue of Elsa's glove, and the white of Seras'.

"Anderson," Alucard said to the living plant. "There was a moment when you could have defeated me. You had your chance. As the sun set on that barren field, on that fateful evening over 5 centuries ago...I would have let you claim my heart."

In the glow of the flames, Alucard's eyes turned brighter.

"But now, your moment has passed. _You cannot defeat me!_ "

Anderson's bayonet shattered as the vines were choked and ripped apart. Alucard reformed, brushing his wounds aside as he garbed himself in black.

"Only a human can destroy a monster. Only a human could dare hope to."

The seals on Alucard's hands shone red, as red as the blood he had consumed over centuries.

Elsa and Seras moved aside; this was his battle to fight. Alucard charged forward, roaring.

Anderson's thorns shot toward the vampire, seemingly thousands in number. They whipped for him, trying to grab hold, but he ducked and weaved through the fray. No matter how many vines the priest threw at him, not a single one touched him.

Alucard rushed at Anderson, hand straightened and aimed right at the focal point of the Father's power; the Nail, buried within his chest, stuck within his heart. The sickness, that needed to be gouged out of him.

Not even the power of the Jackal, designed for regenerating enemies like Anderson, could break through the barrier of green tendrils that shielded his heart. But a gun, or a collection of divine plants, was nothing when faced with the fury of an undead king.

A few vines reached for Anderson's heart as it was pulled out from him, trying to reclaim it for their host. Their attempt failed, withering away almost immediately when Alucard tore the heart away from them. Anderson's broken body tumbled to the ground.

Alucard held the engorged organ in his hand. He stared at it for a moment, looking at its beating motions, and in its centre, the Nail.

He gave a loud, angry bellow as he crushed the heart in his hand. Blood spurted out from it, far more than what would be expected from just one heart. The blood spilled onto the stone street, the Nail landing in a puddle of it.

The Holy Artifact of Rome no longer shone with a brilliant white light. Instead, it was now a dull, dark grey. It had been drained of its power, now nothing more than a useless spike.

Alucard looked down at what was left of Alexander Anderson: less than half of a man, everything below his chest gone. What little bits remained were slowly breaking off of him, turning into a fine powder in the wind.

Today, Alucard felt something other than anger, or bloodlust. Something he thought he would never feel again: sadness.

" _You and I are the same!"_ he shouted at Anderson. " _You are me! I was just the same! Don't you understand?! This is how I became what I am!_ "

Alucard buried his face in his hands. Red drops leaked from his eyes as he quietly sobbed.

He looked up when he heard Anderson chuckle.

"Demons do not cry," said Anderson, lying on the ground amongst his own powdered remains. "Are these the tears of a long-dead child?"

The sun had almost made its way fully over the horizon now. Night had been replaced by day. The light beamed down on the ruined streets of London, showing Anderson's fragmented body in greater detail.

"Demons do not cry," he repeated. "You became a demon because you couldn't cry anymore, right? Humans cry. And when their tears finally run dry, there's nothing left but a demon nor a monster, and one final prayer for death. So laugh, demon. Laugh that arrogant laugh of yours, and remember: _I beat you to it_."

Alucard's sorrow had passed, replaced with a respectful smile, respect for his rival.

"So how long will it be, then?" asked Anderson. "How long before you're no longer cursed to walk the Earth?"

"...until the weight of my past is shattered by my oncoming future. It shouldn't be too long, my nemesis. I'll see you in Hell."

Anderson's eyes crumbled. Yet still, he could see. He could see the other side. "Who's that? The voices of children?"

Integra moved past Elsa and Seras to the bayonet Anderson had stuck in the ground, and drew her own sword. She planted it beside Anderson's weapon, _in memoriam_.

Anderson reached to the sky with his only remaining hand. That, too, crumbled. "I can hear them. The children...they're all playing, and...I should go. They're all waiting. Is...is that really you, Maxwell?"

He couldn't see his friends gathered near him, but he could feel them there. He could feel Heinkel, Yumie and the rest of the Iscariots nearby, knelt in mourning.

" _You mustn't cry, children. Say your prayers...before you sleep. Amen, children..._ "

Anderson's head broke away, returning to the dust that he always spoke of.

Alucard gave a slight smile, nodding in approval. "Amen."

" _Amen._ "

The cultured voice, and the foot that stomped on Anderson's remains, broke the solemn mood. Blue lines waved down the streets of London, lashing at skyscrapers, cutting them down like grass before a scythe. Hunks of buildings smashed to the ground, leaving clouds of dirt in their wake.

The cigar fell from Integra's mouth as she opened it in shock. She looked at the man that stood before the group, who stuck a cigarette in his mouth and sneered at them.

"Walter! Is that you?!"

"Trash. The dead are nothing but refuse. And there is no need for anyone to mourn filth. Isn't that right, Integra?"

" _Walter..._ "

"Walter, sir..." said Seras, dismayed. "What have they done to you?"

"What have they done to me? Obviously I've been captured, brainwashed, and turned into a vampire, then forced against my will to tear my friends and masters to bloody shreds. Was that the sort of explanation you were hoping for, Seras?"

Elsa stepped forward, but Integra held her arm out to stop her.

"I answer to no man's will but my own. I am myself in mind, body, and soul. I am Walter C. Dornez, the Angel of Death. And as the dawn light cuts through the darkness, so shall I reap each of your souls in bloody turn."

Integra clenched her fist.

"Walter... _enough, Walter!_ "

" _DO NOT! USE THAT NAME!"_ he shouted back at his former master.

Yumie charged forth before anyone could stop her, drawing her katana from its sheath. This man had already desecrated Anderson's remains, and she would be damned if she let him get away with it, or anything else for that matter.

"I'll kill you! Kill you, kill you, _kill you!_ You know nothing of what it means to serve a master! Nothing!"

Yumie's attack was swift, precise, covering enough ground in under a second to position herself behind Walter, sword raised for the kill. "You're dead..."

" _You're the one who's dead._ "

Walter did not even turn around to watch Yumie be sliced to ribbons by his wires. To him she was a mere fly to be swatted away, not even worthy of his acknowledgement.

Coagulated bloodstains on the ground received a fresh coat of paint from Yumie's butchered body, fingers, limbs, organs and all.

" _YUMIE !_ "

Heinkel whipped out her pistol, just as she felt the long barrel of a Mauser C96 against her face. She looked, and saw the Captain pull the trigger at the other end.

"There's nothing you can do to stop me," Walter warned. "And no one will stand in the way of my treasons."

* * *

The Doctor was unsure of what to make of how the Major looked at that moment. Instead of watching the activity on the screens, he surveyed his own shoes intently, as though they had changed colours.

"Sir...is something wrong?"

"Not all, Doctor."

There was a further gap between their conversation, an awkward silence. The Doctor shuffled his feet, and glanced at Schrödinger, who shrugged.

Just as he was about to speak up, the Doctor was cut off by his leader.

"Tell me, Doctor..."

"...yes?"

"...is the final subject finished?"

Doc straightened up.

"Yes, my Major," he said with pride. "And might I say, she may be my finest work yet. I have already set aside the necessary equipment for this scenario, sir."

"I am pleased to hear that, _herr_ Doctor. Do return to the medical wing and activate it..."

The Major looked back up to the many displays in front of him, and focused on the one that displayed a close-up of Queen Elsa.

" _...yes._ Return to the medical wing, and activate it...so that this winter goddess may finally know Death's embrace."

* * *

Heinkel gasped, almost in shock from the amount of pain she was experiencing. The bullet had blown two large holes clean through both sides of her mouth. Unlike Alucard, Seras, or Elsa, she was just a human, albeit a highly skilled one. But none of her skills would heal her wounds.

She wished, for a moment, that she was a Regenerator, like her fallen comrade, Father Alexander Anderson. If she were, she would have already been back on her feet, killing the sinful creature that stood before her.

She looked past the long barrel of the gun, at the Captain's face. His eyes looked into hers, and he silently shook his head. He did not speak, but the message was still clear: _do not interfere_.

The Captain produced a small medical kit from his jacket, tossing it to Heinkel.

She watched him jump into the air, carrying himself up by rapidly kicking off of one building to another, bouncing from wall to wall.

 _He took pity on me_ , thought Heinkel, forcing herself to stand. _How dare he. Am I not worthy of a soldier's respect? Have I fallen so low, that I am not even worth considering as a threat?_

When Queen Elsa flew past her in pursuit of the Captain, Heinkel Wolfe felt even smaller. Compared to the likes of the Millennium soldier or the Ice Goddess, she was nothing.

As she heard the hurried footsteps of her fellow Iscariots behind her, Heinkel made a vow to herself, one that she would remember after this day had passed.

A vow she would keep for the Church. For Anderson. For Yumie. And for herself.

A vow that she would turn herself into something more than human.

* * *

Right as he felt the gloved hand clamp around his ankle, the Captain drew out his two Mausers and fired.

None of his bullets found their mark. Even if they had, it wouldn't have mattered. His modified pistols, as strong as they were, were useless against a deity of hail and snow.

Elsa dropped the crushed remains of the bullets she had caught, and looked at the Captain with an icy stare.

"So, what can _you_ do?"

Something in the Captain's eyes changed as he holstered his weapons. A human may not have noticed it, but Elsa certainly did. The shape of his pupils, the colour of his irises, and an innate ferocity within them gave off a certain impression; subtle, but still there.

His eyes were animalistic.

Wolf-like.

The Captain lunged at Elsa, his hand morphed into a paw-like appendage, sharp nails extended. They closed around Elsa's arm.

The wall of the nearest skyscraper was remodeled as the Captain sprinted up its side, smashing the Snow Queen through it as he pulled her along. When the two reached the roof, he threw her down onto it.

The Captain pulled his fist back, then sent it flying straight down at Elsa's face.

None the worse for wear, Queen Elsa blocked the full force of his blow with her hand. And when the werewolf saw his arm begin to freeze over, he recoiled.

"Is that it?" Elsa smiled. " _Úlfhéðnar_? This will be easy."

The Captain reached up and tore off his arm before the ice could spread further. He dodged a flurry of ice from Elsa, kicking a couple pieces aside as his arm healed.

"None of you freaks can stay down, can you?"

She summoned a dozen spears, launching them at the Captain. He dodged all except one, which imbedded itself into his leg. He just barely managed to leap out of the way of a 3-ton hailstone that Elsa hurled at him. He plucked the icicle out of his leg, and stopped.

The Captain held out his hand, morphed back into a human's. Whether he was capable of speech or not was anyone's guess. If he was, he didn't show it. He let his actions speak for him. And right now, he was telling Elsa to stop.

"Had enough?" she said, looking into the Captain's eyes again. Physically imposing as he was, he only reminded her of a small, cornered, frightened animal.

The Captain pointed skyward, to the _Deus Ex Machina_. He was trying to tell Elsa something, but what, she didn't know. He then turned his back to her, and began slowly walking away.

He had left himself wide open. Just as the queen was about to perform a killing strike, something shot out of the top of the zeppelin.

The object flew in an arc, going upwards, then down into a divebomb.

Elsa realized what the Captain was really pointing to. It wasn't just a gesture, it was a warning.

The Captain jumped back up to the airship as the flying object landed directly opposite Elsa.

But it was no object. It was no human, either. It was the last of the Doctor's experiments, the final soldier from Millennium.

Elsa took a step back, and blinked hard a few times. She reached out with her powers, just to ensure this wasn't an illusion, because she couldn't believe her eyes.

"No... _no._ _Not you too..._ "

Unlike the undead bodies of her parents, this grim experiment did not hide its face with a mask. It did not cloak itself with a shroud. Instead, it had been covered in a black mourning dress. A dress that a princess of Arendelle might have worn while attending the funeral of her parents.

" _How does it feel, Skadi?_ " boomed the Major's voice overhead from the _Deus Ex Machina'_ s loudspeaker. " _Like a frog trapped in a slowly-boiling pot of water, or a sheep being led to the slaughter, you never knew what it was all about until now. But 'now' is far too late. You would have been safer if you had stayed in your wreck of a kingdom._ "

The Major's chuckling filled the air.

" _...and had you remained under our influence, you would have. But the Hellsing Organization just had to send their meddlesome vampire after you. Perhaps you could blame your new master for this turn of events, or maybe Alucard. But then again, if you hadn't been such a stupid, ineffective ruler, your family and kingdom may have still lived to see this age. So I would say that ultimately, you should be blaming yourself for this turn of events. While I would love to remain here and watch you die, I have other business to attend to._ Auf Wiedersehen."

The _Deus Ex Machina_ flew off, in the direction of Alucard, Integra, and the others.

Elsa had experienced the loss of her family, the massacre of her people, the death of innumerable soldiers by her hand, and the end of her era. She had even faced the No-Life King in battle, twice. But even all of that did not prepare her for what she was seeing today.

"Don't come any closer. Stay...stay away." Elsa backed off, holding her hands in front of her defensively. "I don't...I don't want to hurt you. _Please._ "

Princess Anna of Arendelle walked toward her, a murderous intent in her every step.

* * *

Alucard knelt on the ground, viewing the remnants of his nemesis. Alexander Anderson's dusty remains swept around his fingers by the gentle morning breeze.

"Get up. Stand and face me, Alucard, lapdog of Hellsing."

Walter's words were only met with soft laughter from Alucard.

" _Angel of Death_...weren't you one who said Englishmen look forward to growing old?" asked the vampire. "You seem to have abandoned your maturity. Truly a terrible shame, you were such a lovely old man. It pains me to see how wretched and ugly you've become, your body and soul corrupted. A dark reaper, to the very core."

"Yes...this world is, after all, a violent fleeting dream...and as the dawn breaks, I shall be ready to reap the Earth. _STAND AND FACE ME, ALUCARD!_ "

"You know damn well that the two us...are dogs. We don't bark unless we're told."

Alucard touched his head to the ground, in submission to his master.

"Your orders...give me your orders, master. I can kill. I can slaughter him without the slightest hesitation or hint of regret. I am a monster in his cage. And, you are _...Integra._ "

Integra Hellsing saw her servant peer up at her intently, ambient shadows swirling around him.

"My hand holds the weapon. My sight finds the target," Alucard proclaimed. "I can chamber the round. I can pull back on the bolt and I can release the safety. But _you_...it is your will that commands the killing. So, what will you do? What are your orders, my master? _Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing!_ "

His master grimaced.

* * *

" _Yes. Yes. Yes. Say it, fräulein,_ " grinned the Major as he peered through his binoculars in anticipation.

"Say it, yes," said the Doctor. "Say it now."

"Just say it," repeated Schrödinger. "Just say it."

* * *

"Say. The words."

Integra tried to ignore what Walter had said. Up until very recently, she ordered him around. She wasn't used to her own butler trying to force orders onto her. She reached for a cigar, raising it to her mouth, then slowly clicked her lighter. She knew what had to happen next, but that didn't mean she liked it.

She brought the open flame to the tip of the cigar, holding it there for four or five seconds. She watched the cigar's end burn, blackened bits of it falling away.

" _INTEGRA! SAY IT! SAY THE WORDS!_ "

"Now search and destroy!" Integra ordered, crushing the cigar in her hand and tossing it aside. "Search and destroy, servant! You have your standing orders! Nothing's changed! Annihilate all forces that dare oppose us! Crush all obstacles that stand before you and push forward! Regardless of what it is! Regardless of _who_ it is!"

Integra's voice wavered.

" _Destroy...anyone...in your way._ "

Alucard rose up off the ground, glowing with shades of red mixed with black.

"Yes...my master."

" _Excellent_ ," said Walter. "Just perfect. You were a master worthy of my years of service."

"However this happened to you, I no longer care," Integra shot back. "You're nothing but my enemy now. You are Hellsing's enemy, you are Britain's enemy, you are nothing but a traitor. It is my pleasure to defeat you. To _destroy_ you."

" _Well said, Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing._ "

The Major passed over the group in his airship as he addressed them.

" _To think I called you an amateur. It appears I owe you an apology. At long last, you have become worthy of this battle. You are now my lovely, enormously dangerous arch-enemy whom I must defeat at all costs._ "

Millennium's final zeppelin descended onto the streets, brushing aside debris. It landed roughly, shaking the nearby surroundings.

The _Deus Ex Machina_ 's main doors opened, metal ramps extending down as the Major issued his challenge.

" _Fate has dealt our hand. Now, come. I call your bet._ "

Schrödinger, standing at the top of the walkways, beckoned to Integra.

" _Das Dritte Reich, seien sie herzilch willkommen_ ," he said.

Integra accepted Millennium's invitation, heading towards the waiting zeppelin.

"Go on," said Alucard. "Go to him and kill him. Go put an end to this."

"Yes. It's about time," Integra replied.

Seras, who had been standing by the entire time and was now unsure of what to do, looked to Alucard.

"M-master?"

"Go, now. Our master will have need of you in there. Help her put an end to this madman's dream. This 50-year nightmare. The dawn approaches, and I still have my own bad dream to deal with."

Seras prepared to leave, but she had one last thing to take care of.

"Walter!" she called out. "I know this is odd to say under these circumstances, but...well...thank you for everything you've done for me. Take care."

Walter jolted with surprise, but collected himself. A small smile played over his lips.

"You as well."

Seras gazed at him sadly, wondering why he had thrown everything he had away.

"Come along."

"Yes!" Seras said, roused from her thoughts by Integra's command. She turned and followed her master up the ramp, but not before Integra uttered a final goodbye.

" _Farewell_ , Walter... _farewell_. And may we never meet again."

With that, the two started up the metal walkways. When they had made their way up into the zeppelin's main bay, they were greeted by Schrödinger.

"Ladies, welcome."

Integra didn't even bother to look at him as she put a bullet in between his eyes. The boy's head exploded in a shower of red.

"Obnoxious jokers," Integra muttered irritably. "I've had enough. 'Call your bet', indeed."

She and Seras walked through to the end of the expansive bay, to a door leading to the rest of the zeppelin's interior.

"Elsa," said Integra. She was nowhere near her third servant, but she knew the Ice Queen could hear her all the same. "Wherever you are, whatever enemy you are dealing with, you are to destroy and report back to my location. _That's an order_."

* * *

"Please, stay away. Just stay away!"

Anna continued to approach, ignoring her sister's apprehension, and flexed her hands.

Red and white shone through the black of her gloves, white from her left and red from her right. Together the colours made for a surreal source of light. They made Elsa want to back away further from her sister, but the wall of fire that had been brought forth on the street behind her did not make that an option. White-hot flames rushed toward her, and instinctively, Elsa ran forward and jumped over her sister.

She had only just extinguished the fire as Anna met her in mid-air, grabbing her by the face. The princess slammed her sister back down onto the ground, and sent a power plant's worth of electricity through her.

Normally, the Ice Goddess could have withstood any amount of voltage. But the bright energy that coursed through Anna's arm and into Elsa was not normal electricity, but more sorcery. As Elsa struggled against the volts, she realized this was the same sorcery that Millennium's mad scientist had implanted into the rest of his experiments.

Tubalcain Alhambra. Rip Van Winkle. Zorin Blitz. Pabbie and the trolls. The Captain. Walter Dornez. Agdar and Idunn. And now, Elsa's own sister, Anna. Each one of them had ended up as test subjects for the Doctor's morbid procedures. But even the Doctor was just another animal on a leash, held by the true mastermind behind it all: the Major.

The Major, the leader of Millennium and the orchestrator of this entire mess. Elsa had only seen him once, but she remembered his appearance vividly. The thick glasses, the short stature, the arrogant voice, the smug grin.

Elsa pictured the Major in her mind as best she could as she forced her hand to close into a fist, and brought it up against Anna's face.

Not enough.

Elsa brought her fist up again, imagining that she was breaking the Major's fat face.

Still not enough.

Elsa coated her hand in a gauntlet of ice as she delivered another blow to her sister. This time, it worked. Anna flew back, but compensated by landing on her feet. She prepared to cast more magic, just as Elsa iced over her hands.

"Anna, please stop! It's me! Elsa! Don't you recognize me?"

The princess hit her fists against the ground, breaking the ice. She raised her hand.

The ground around Anna cracked and shifted. Parts of the very earth beneath her rose up, huge boulders formed by the vampire princess' third ability.

"Fire...lightning...earth. How could I have let them do this to you..." Elsa despaired.

While she saw the tons of rock being hurled at her, Elsa felt an almost unfamiliar urge, one that she had not felt in eons, since her coronation long ago. It was an urge to run. To leave all of this behind her. But she knew that wasn't possible. She was compelled to obey Integra's orders. Even without them, she doubted she could run from her own sister.

Elsa stood her ground, sending up winter bolts. The rocks froze, and Elsa shattered them as she punched them away.

The Snow Queen sprinted to Anna, and grabbed her by the shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. They were the colour of death, as red as Alucard's. Elsa could only hope that somewhere, deep down, there was still something left of her sister that would recognize her, and stop this insanity.

" _Anna...please. It's me. It's me, Elsa._ "

Anna only stared back at her.

* * *

"You once told me, Alucard, that true immortals don't exist. You might be on to something, so let's put it to the test. Let's keep killing you till you stay down."

Walter tugged on his wires, pulling Alucard all the way down through the building. The vampire smacked against the ground amidst a pile of steel beams and concrete dust.

Bullets flew through the smoke, but Walter casually blocked them.

" _Really_?"

One of Alucard's shadows expanded, and out burst a large, black, mutated canine.

"The Black Hound, of Baskerville," Walter declared with disgust. He twitched a finger as the dog dove at him. The dark animal split in two, its halves falling to either side of Walter.

"Learn to heel. _Mongrel_."

Walter flicked his fingers, his wires dancing about.

"So what's next? What clever little trick do you have for me, Alucard? Offer some proof of your worth."

A shadow quietly rose up behind Walter, raising the Jackal. The trigger clicked.

 _BOOM._

The gun exploded. Alucard gazed at his hand, blown apart alongside his weapon.

"Did you forget who made that gun for you?" Walter taunted. "That gun was meant to defeat Anderson."

He turned to face Alucard.

" _And I'm no Anderson._ "

* * *

 _Click._

The Doctor grinned, bringing up the two fights on the screens. He glanced from one to the other.

On one screen, a blonde-haired man emerged from the corpse of Baskerville, coughing heavily.

"Oh my..." said the Doctor.

"Ah, it's him!" the Major exclaimed. "Oh dear, what was his name? Ah, that's right, he's the brother!"

"He's Luke. Warrant officer Luke Valentine. I recall he was eaten by the dog. Now, with the dog dead, he's able to manifest himself once more."

The Major reclined in his chair, savouring the moment.

"On one side, we have two former allies at each other's throats. The vampire Alucard, against his old friend, Walter Dornez, former Hellsing member. And on the other..."

 _Click._

"...we have Queen Elsa, monarch of the forgotten kingdom Arendelle, locked in combat against her dear sister Princess Anna, brought to the state of un-life by our science."

"It is quite the spectacle, isn't it Major?"

"Indeed it is, Doctor. Everything is falling into place. They are members of my orchestra, and I am the conductor. They dance to _my_ tune, _my_ score."

The Major smiled.

"But we are approaching the end of the song, Doctor. And when this _danse macabre_ comes to its end, both Elsa the Snow Queen and the vampire Alucard will be wiped from the face of this Earth."

"I cannot wait, Major."

* * *

"Anna. Please stop this. _I don't want to hurt you._ "

Beneath the monster, beneath the dark science and vampirism, it appeared as though something within Anna had recognized her sister. But appearances were deceiving.

Anna opened her mouth, full of fangs, and a stream of fire erupted from it. It hit Elsa square in the face, throwing her backwards. The queen landed on unsteady feet.

Anna stamped on the pavement, electrifying the ground. Elsa only just dodged it, leaving the pavement for the roof of a building close by. She threw some more icicles at Anna, but the distance between them, coupled with the princess' astounding speed, ensured that none of the projectiles would find their mark.

Anna swirled her arms around furiously, charging her powers up, and released them. Instantly, Elsa felt an intense, stifling heat that shimmered in the air.

It was strange. No natural environment, no matter how extreme in temperature, could have ever affected her. Yet here she was, feeling the sensation of a sorcery-induced heatwave.

The rooftop, already damaged and fragile, gave way under Elsa's feet. On the way back down to the ground, she tried to generate an ice slide to break her fall, but it melted in the sweltering environment.

The Snow Queen knew there was only one place left to take this fight.

Up.

Elsa stopped just short of the pavement, activating her powers of flight. She sped to Anna, grasped her by the arm, and the two flew up into the sky.

* * *

"What is this? What's happened to me? _What the hell's going on here?!_ "

Luke Valentine's new lease on life was short-lived. The wires that snaked around him and stabbed into his body saw to that.

"I certainly didn't expect to see you again, Luke Valentine," said Walter, holding his wires taut. " _Excellent._ One can always find use for a spare Nazi vampire."

The butler's hand started to shake uncontrollably.

 _My body...is starting to give out. I prepared for this. I rebelled knowing this would happen...this was always inevitable._

Alucard watched from afar as his arm regenerated. He saw the corpse of his own familiar streak through the air, the two halves manipulated on the ends of Walter's wires. Strung between the dog was the corpse of Luke Valentine, under the same control as Baskerville.

"You're back!" Alucard spat. He had reformed his left arm, only for the right to be taken off in the giant dog's teeth as it flew past. He looked up to Luke's swaying body. "Well, aren't you a tough one to digest! I always thought you were nothing but _shit!_ "

A knife slipped out of Luke's sleeve as Walter circled the dog back around. The Valentine brother grasped hold of it and whipped it down. It stabbed into Alucard's chest, but to him, it was just another annoyance, as ineffective against him as Elsa's icicles. He gripped the knife's handle and wrenched it out of his stomach.

"Walter. You've made yourself a little puppet. _Adorable._ "

Walter suddenly fell down and retched, coughing up blood.

" _Not yet! It's too soon! I'm not finished! "_ panicked Walter. " _I can't die before I've finished killing him!_ "

* * *

"Just as I thought," the Doctor sighed. "We put him through the process too quickly. It was risky surgery to begin with."

"Nonsense," scoffed the Major. "We gave him everything we had to give. And in return for these gifts, we've taken from him everything of value. His life. His master. His honour. His loyalty. And yet it still wasn't enough. He lives on borrowed time, and we are his loan sharks, waiting to collect our interest. But time grows thin, and when the rooster crows he shall be no more."

The two saw Walter struggle to his feet, steadying himself. He took a deep breath, smoothed his hair back, and stretched out a fresh bunch of wires between his hands.

"We have all invested the last 50 years preparing for this fight," the Major said proudly. "50 years, to prepare for one glorious night of battle against the mighty Alucard. The cards have been dealt, and it's all down to one hand. Winner takes all, and his opponent holds the joker! _Show us what you're made of, Walter C. Dornez!_ "

The Major stopped, and looked to the Doctor.

"...but we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves, aren't we? Doctor, please bring up the aerial feed."

"Of course."

The Doctor pressed the remote, bringing up Arendelle's royal siblings on two of the zeppelin's bigger displays.

"Oh, Schrödinger?"

"What is it?" came the voice of the werecat, spontaneously appearing in the command room.

"It would seem Queen Elsa is currently preoccupied with family matters. But she will not remain that way forever. Please wait for her on the ground. I wish to deliver one last message to her when she returns."

Schrödinger saluted, and disappeared.

* * *

Up close, Elsa wasn't faring much better. Anna's attacks constantly kept her distracted and off-balance. Even a mile in the air, high above London, with all the open space around them, she could do nothing but endure the onslaught of punches from her sister. The fact that they were delivered at near-light speed, coupled with being elementally enhanced, only made matters worse.

Elsa knew she had to do something, fast. Right before Anna's fist connected, it was stopped by a barrier of ice. Elsa grabbed Anna by her arm once more, and spun her around. And around, and around, and around. When she had built up enough momentum, she aimed Anna at the ground and released her grip.

To Elsa's luck, Anna did not seem to possess the gift of flight, and the roles had now been reversed. Elsa formed hard gauntlets around her hands, dove down at Anna, and delivered blow after blow upon her face. In freefall, they rapidly descended back down to the streets.

With each strike, Elsa felt more and more unsure of herself. She wondered if her sister could feel the pain of her attacks, or if her regeneration took care of it. But one thing that Elsa was sure of, was that she herself could feel a hurting sensation resonating deep within her.

Elsa jumped off of her sister, and saw her fly straight into the pavement. Concrete flew in every direction upon impact, kicking up a big cloud of dust.

The queen stood before the crater, tensed and alert, ready for anything.

Or so she thought.

Something small whizzed out of the dust, and hit Elsa in the shoulder.

" _Ah!_ "

Elsa winced, reflexively grabbing her injured shoulder.

But that couldn't be right. An injury?

Elsa softly touched her shoulder, and felt something hard sticking out of it. When she drew her hand back, she gasped. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. But the crimson liquid on her glove was unmistakable.

Blood.

She had not bled from anything in over a century. Why was there blood?

Another tiny object punctured her skin, a sharp pain emanating from her leg this time.

As the dust cleared away, she saw Anna standing there, unharmed. She had removed her cape, and Elsa saw the seemingly innocuous objects it had concealed.

A little bag of coins, and a rope.

* * *

"That was very good shooting. Well done, Luke Valentine! Your talents were obviously wasted inside that dog!"

Alucard allowed Walter's shadow puppet to bite down on him. Baskerville's powerful jaws clenched down hard on the vampire, but Alucard only smiled. He withdrew the Casull, stuck the slide in his mouth, chambered a round, then shoved the barrel against Luke's skull.

" _And that's checkmate!_ "

Luke collapsed to the ground, along with the body of the hellhound.

"You've broken my new toy..." Walter said, watching the attached wires settle onto the pavement. "...still! I've got you cornered."

He pointed at his foe.

" _This is it, Alucard!_ "

The vampire looked back and smiled.

" _Yes._ It's time to put an end to this dance."

Walter summoned up the last reserves of his strength, and quickly sent several sets of his wires through Alucard.

Alucard seemed quite surprised when one cluster of wires severed his legs.

He seemed astonished when more wires sliced his arms apart.

And his expression was one of downright shock when a final set of wires wrapped around him, reducing him to just a head and a torso, suspending him helplessly in mid-air.

* * *

Elsa's left arm wasn't working. Even if she could raise it up to use her winter powers, the hot atmosphere around her would surely rapidly melt anything she created.

The queen cried out in agony when a dozen more tiny objects stuck into her. She fell to her knees.

She looked down at her right leg, and got a better look at what was sticking out of it.

Had she not been given history lessons as a younger woman, she would never have even recognized it. But the markings, the engravings, they provoked a distant memory within her. A memory of her in Arendelle castle's study, poring through one of her textbooks on ancient history.

The things sticking out of her arm were coins. Roman _denarii_. And she had been wounded by 14 of them.

20, now.

Anna drew closer, removing piece after piece of silver from her bag and throwing them at her sister.

21\. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Elsa tried to get up, to fight back. But her legs refused to work.

26\. 27. 28.

29.

Schrödinger materialized behind Anna, toting a television.

" _Guten tag_ , _frau!_ Hello, salutations and good morning!" Schrödinger cheerfully quipped.

Elsa gasped for air, another very human sensation she had not required and forgotten about: the need to breathe.

" _What...the fuck...do you want?_ " the queen growled uncomfortably.

"It's not about what I want, but rather about what the Major wants! And what he wants, is to deliver one last message to you! Enjoy!"

The television screen clicked on, showing the Major's smirking face.

"Hello, hello, _hello_ , my most impressive, most fearsome Snow Queen. Perhaps you are wondering how you have found yourself in this predicament? Well, after all you've been through, I suppose I _do_ owe you some sort of explanation. You see, around 60 years ago, there was a great war on this fair continent of Europe. The most amazing sort of conflict, so much death and destruction...such fond memories I have of it. So many wonderful new weapons were created as a result of this war effort, but some...some, had already been around for millennia."

The Major adjusted his glasses, smiling wider.

"Did you know, my dear, that us Nazis saw some cooperation from the Vatican? In particular, we received a most curious set of artifacts that not even Section XIII would use. They thought they were outright blasphemous, but I find them rather charming. But as they say, 'one man's trash' and all that."

He chortled.

"Unfortunately, they never saw use, the poor things. After the war they were locked away in storage, waiting for a day that they might taste blood. And thanks to you, Skadi, they have! Truly, you were a dangerous foe, _fräulein_. As dangerous as they come. But now, it is time we said our goodbyes. I am sad to say, we will not be seeing each other ever again. Take care, Queen Elsa of Arendelle."

He saluted.

" _Auf Wiedersehen._ "

The screen went blank. Schrödinger smiled, then vanished.

As Anna unfastened the rope from her side, a dead tree rose up, spontaneously, out of the ground behind Elsa.

Anna tossed the rope, and it tied itself into a hangman's knot. The noose slipped onto Elsa's neck, and yanked her to the tree. The other end tied around a withered tree branch.

Elsa kicked and flailed, but she felt weak. So weak. But even as she slowly suffocated, she managed to whisper one last plea to her sister.

" _Anna...please..._ "

Princess Anna threw the final coin into her sister's chest. The 30th piece of silver.

The rope, stained with the blood of a dead apostle, drew tighter around Elsa as ancient Hebrew letters on the rope glared in a harsh orange light, temporarily making themselves visible before fading away.

As Anna turned her back and walked away, Elsa's vision went black. Soon, there was nothing there but the stiff, rigid body of Queen Elsa of Arendelle, suspended from the tree, gently swaying to and fro in the wind.


	3. Chapter 3

Accompanied by a monocle, a thin red hair tie fell to the ground.

Walter's breath was ragged, desperately trying to keep up with his sporadic heartbeats. He held onto his wires, gasping for air as he looked at the body of Alucard, entangled and suspended a few feet off the pavement.

Walter fell to his knees, breathing hard. It took almost a full five seconds for his lungs to not feel like they were on fire. He looked up, focusing on Alucard.

After all this time, after all this effort, after all this preparation, he could not fail now.

" _The heart...it's not over without the heart..._ "

Walter forced himself to his feet, and ripped a piece of rebar from a pile of concrete. He was so close now, so close to his goal.

" _His heart. Just...his heart._ "

He felt so weak that he couldn't even lift the steel bar. Its tail end dragged and scraped against the ground alongside him as he walked.

Walter grunted as he summoned up the last bit of his strength, raising his makeshift weapon. This was it.

The sharp end of the rebar plunged into Alucard's chest, hitting the exact spot where his heart would be.

Walter had finally done it. It was finished.

Alucard, the great vampire lord, the dark supernatural being that had been the scourge of Transylvania, the monster that had put fear into the hearts of so many other monsters, had finally perished.

But the smile on Alucard's pallid face, that perpetual grin, did not leave. And that was when Walter knew something wasn't right.

"It's wrong," Walter said, unnerved. " _No...IT ISN'T HIM!_ "

A layer of shadow moved away, briefly exposing the body for what it really was: the mutilated remains of Luke Valentine. His body faded away, taking with him the shadows, the wires, any trace that he had ever even been there.

Walter stepped back, horrified, shaking and shivering. He froze up with terror as he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

"That's right," said a familiar voice behind him. "Good try though. Who knew that he would be so useful. But it turns out that dog food will do, in a pinch."

Walter spun around, just in time to be floored by a punch to the jaw. The blow could have easily taken his head off, but such a quick death would never satisfy the thing that was toying with him.

"Well come on then, Angel of Death. Stand up. You're not going to let this all end with just one punch, are you, _kid_?"

As he nursed his injured face with one hand, Walter looked up at the approaching Alucard, his face still partly hidden in darkness.

"Whatever it is you did to change yourself into this, it doesn't seem too reliable. You're not regenerating," Alucard declared. "You're just wearing that body down to nothing. So what's the plan, then? I mean, look at you. You've burned through the height of your power. You're not going to be able to hold that form much longer. So where do you go from here? Back to the old man? Or maybe you'll slip further back into childhood."

Almost on cue, Walter's appearance regressed and became more youthful, changing from that of a young man to a teenager.

" _Hello_ , little Walter!" mocked Alucard. "Haven't seen that face in 60 years!"

" _Bastard_ ," Walter spat. "What sort of game are you playing?! Answer me!"

"What game am I playing? _Really_? No, this game is all yours. I'm just better at playing it, foolish child."

Alucard spoke as if he was talking to an insect, or a germ. And in a way, he was.

"The trappings of mortal forms mean nothing to me. I explained all of this to you 60 years ago. And still, you thought your betrayal had the slightest chance of succeeding? Not a very good listener, are you? It hardly matters. When all is said and done, this is really nothing more than childish squabble. And since your form now so perfectly reflects this, I felt it would be rude not to follow suit."

Walter briefly glanced past Alucard, at a beam of sunlight reflected off of Anderson's bayonet, stuck in the ground amidst a pile of rubble. The single blade was a testament to the priest's desperate, tiresome struggle.

It reminded Walter of his own impending end.

"It's the nature of battle," Alucard said. "Until you defeat what cowers you, you cannot truly become yourself. But, to do that, you must break the shackles that hold you down. Just as I did. Just as Elsa and Anderson and even the Major did. We have all gone through the metamorphosis you're experiencing!"

Walter tried to stand, but his legs weren't working properly.

"From the moment we met you wanted to fight me," the undead king recounted. He looked down at himself, remembering the years that had gone by. "Otherwise, how could you ever move forward? Would you even know how? Were you afraid of becoming useless? Were you afraid of getting old? Or maybe...you were afraid of being forgotten."

The truth in Alucard's words hurt Walter more than any bullet or punch ever could. He glared at Alucard, angrily.

"Little John Bull, don't make me laugh. _You're_ the one playing games!"

As he spoke, the shadows moved aside, revealing Alucard's younger, more feminine features.

"Look at you. 60 years and in your heart you're still the same. Just a scrawny brat. Now, _come on..._ "

He shifted to a fighting stance.

" _...show me what you've got._ "

* * *

Somewhere, in the expansive rooms below her, Integra Hellsing could hear the violent struggle between the Captain and her own servant, Seras Victoria. Sounds of punches, kicks, and the smashing of objects reverberated up through the inner layers of the _Deus Ex Machina_ and reached her ears.

They were noises she would have to ignore, for she had just walked through the automatic doors to the zeppelin's command room. And she had her own fight to deal with.

"Show yourself," Integra demanded.

A chair swiveled around, and its occupant smiled at her.

"Ah, _willkommen_. _Fräulein_ , I'm so glad we finally get to meet each other in the flesh."

A bullet stopped inches from the Major's face, repelled by a barely-visible barrier. But that didn't stop Integra. She fired until her gun was empty, then loaded in a fresh magazine and repeated the process.

The Major calmly waited for the leader of the Hellsing Organization to stop attacking.

"...I don't think that gun is going to be very helpful. Sorry. I should have warned you about the glass."

Integra tossed aside her empty gun and drew out her sword, charging full force against him. She stabbed at the glass with all her might, but it was to no avail. The blade cracked into pieces.

"I feared you might not make it here in time for the main event. What a tragedy that would have been."

The Major peered at his rival from the safety of the other side of the glass.

"You see, this extravaganza is one night only. Luckily, I've got the best seat in the house, and a winsome Hellsing on my arm."

"You coward!"

Integra threw her broken sword to the ground, frustrated.

The Major returned to his comfortable seat, and took out a remote.

"You are in for such a treat. Enjoy."

 _Click_.

The room's displays (the few that still worked), switched pictures.

Multiple images of Elsa, hanging from a tree, reached Integra's eyes. The queen's body still swayed softly in the breeze. In the background, Integra could just make out a figure, walking away from Elsa.

A figure with strawberry-blonde hair, in a black mourning dress, that was now heading in the direction of the zeppelin.

"I suppose you could say..." the Major said, holding up his hands, "...that, in the world of metaphor, I have slain the dragon. I, battalion commander of Millennium, have brought the life of Queen Elsa of Arendelle crashing down. And very soon, I will-"

"Situation A," Integra interrupted. She gazed at a screen, focusing on a close-up of Elsa. "Unlock Limited Release Control System to Level 0. Activate the Cromwell Invocation. _Your master Hellsing commands it_."

* * *

Anna felt the ground vibrate, sensing an indefinable _something_ from behind her. She turned around.

Blue vapor had surrounded the tree, obscuring both it and Elsa from view. Even with Anna's enhanced senses, she could not see anything within the fog.

Anna lightly hissed, baring her fangs when she saw a thin layer of ice rapidly spreading from the waving mist. It radiated out, quickly covering the ground, the buildings, and their roofs. Grey clouds blotted out the sun, and it began to snow. Mixed in with the flakes, hailstones poured forth.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew from the mist. It whipped at Anna's cape, and she shielded her eyes.

Soon, the wind grew, its howling intermingling with the blue energy that had now grown into a miniature, whirling maelstrom.

Around Anna, the River Thames froze over, and certain streets in London lit up in a brilliant blue hue. Had Anna viewed it from above, she would have seen a near-perfect replica of the seals that Elsa had borne on the backs of her gloves, formed by the intersecting roads.

A sigil, and at its centre, a crocus.

A crocus, the flower that could bloom in even the harshness of winter.

" _LIMITED RELEASE APPROVAL IS CONFIRMED. RELEASING CONTROL ART RESTRICTION SYSTEM TO LEVEL 0_."

* * *

Swimming up and emerging through layers of her consciousness, Skadi awoke. Blonde hair had become blue, a coronation dress had become a white robe. And an intricate headdress covered the top of a goddess's head.

Her eyes opened, and as she brushed a few strands of hair from her pure, flawless white skin, she beheld a sight she had not witnessed in over a century.

She beheld Arendelle, fully intact and bustling with life. Boats arriving at the harbour, royals disembarking, and in the distance, citizens in the marketplace. Over all of it, the sun caressed the land with its warm rays.

"Welcome to Arendelle! Watch your step, please! The gates will be opening soon!"

"Why do I have to wear this?"

"Because, the queen has come of age! It's coronation day!"

"That's not _my_ fault..."

"What do you want, Sven? ' _Give me a snack._ ' What's the magic word? ' _Please?_ ' Ah, ah ah ah, share."

"I can't believe they're finally opening up the gates!"

"And for a whole day! Faster, Percy!"

"Ah, Arendelle. A most mysterious trade partner. Open those gates so I may unlock your secrets and exploit your riches...did I say that out loud?"

"Oh, me sore eyes can't wait to see the queen and the princess. I bet they're absolutely lovely!"

"I bet they're beautiful!"

" _Enough._ "

Skadi's fair kingdom of Arendelle melted away into shades of black and red, trailing back to their source. _Him._

"Why do you torment me with visions of my people, _Nosferatu?_ "

Where she had seen Arendelle just seconds before, she now saw the ruined buildings of London once again. The wind, the dried up leaves, even the particles of dust in the air did not move. Nothing moved, except her and the thing she was now looking at.

Amongst a miniature forest of the skewered remains of his enemies, in a spot somehow untouched by the winter, stood the undead monster she had become all too acquainted with.

"Torment? You suspect much of me, Skadi. I thought the sight of your old home would bring you joy, even in this current state of affairs _._ "

Two spots of red looked back at her from the dark. He spoke to her in a voice not unlike someone from a horror novel. Or Romania.

"Do you seek my company, Impaler?"

"I do. Please..."

Shadows moved aside, making way for a long table.

"...have a seat."

Skadi approached the vampire, the thing that had already walked the Earth for centuries.

Alucard. The Count. Dracula. Vlad Tepes, the Impaler.

Skadi's shining white light mingled with Dracula's darkness, and as the goddess seated herself, the shadows retreated further, allowing her a better look at the Count. He was dressed in the same red clothing as the painting Skadi had seen of him, during her history studies long ago in her castle. Even his hat looked identical.

"Your portrait does not do you justice, Count. You are even uglier in person."

"So I've heard," Vlad replied. He held a glass of red liquid out to her. "Would you care...for a drink?"

Skadi did not know exactly what sort of red liquid swished around in the glass, but she knew that it probably wasn't wine.

"I would not."

"Very well. Then allow me..."

Vlad tilted the glass back and downed it in one gulp, then let out a breath of satisfaction.

"Was there a reason you froze time itself, Skadi? A reason you interrupted my heart-to-heart with little Walter?"

The Winter Goddess saw the butler, in a much younger form than she had seen previously, sitting motionless on the ground behind Dracula, stopped in time like almost everyone else. He resembled a teenager now.

"Our master's orders."

" _Hnh._ I see. And your sister? Why does she still roam about? Surely the Major's frivolous experiments don't pose that much trouble to you."

" _Anna_..."

Skadi looked back, at her sister in the distance, standing as motionless as Walter.

"...I don't know what to do."

"It is obvious, Skadi."

" _No_...it isn't. I can't just..."

"But you must," insisted the Count. "Monsters such as ourselves do not have the luxury of compassion. That is a mark of humanity, which we have both long since shed."

Skadi did not want to admit it, but she knew the monster before her was right.

"Count...you possess the ability to restore life, an ability not even I have. Just a single bite from you, and anyone may live forever. Would you...if I take care of Anna, can you bring her back?"

Vlad cast his face down.

"I am afraid that isn't possible, Skadi. I do not possess that power. No one does. I cannot bring life, only death."

"But Seras-"

"...is a monster. Like you, like me. She is not in a state of life or death, but an empty state in between. Un-life. That is what she is. Were I to feed upon your sister, she would become a monster, again. Not even a vampire, but a mindless ghoul. Those who are no longer virgins, even ones that had it taken against their will, will become that. A ghoul, without even the capacity for thought. Would you kill your sister, only to have her become a monster all over again? A monster...like me?"

The Ice Queen was silent.

" _Would you?_ "

Skadi clenched her fists, and whispered.

"...you're right...God damn you, you're right..."

Vlad stood up, and Skadi followed suit. The table and chairs vanished, absorbed back into the Count's essence. Her actions mirroring Dracula's, Skadi withdrew her cold touch from the land. The snow, wind and clouds disappeared.

"If you truly care for her, goddess, then you will cure her of that which ails her. You will gouge out the sickness in her heart. We must both face down familiar faces today, Skadi. Familiar faces, who were once friends, and who are now nothing but our enemies. So go. Go and put an end to this sad affair. And when you are done, return to our master's side. She will certainly have need for you. Now..."

Vlad changed his appearance, back to that of the young girl he had taken the form of 60 years prior. Skadi, reluctantly, returned her own appearance to that which she had grown familiar with: the teal, black and purple of her coronation dress and cape.

"...go and say goodbye to that which was once close to you, Elsa. Just as I must say goodbye to the one who I once called friend."

Elsa and Alucard turned their backs on one another, each of them heading in opposite directions, taking their own separate paths.

* * *

From high above, tucked away at the top of a building's tower, Schrödinger surveyed the remains of London far below. From his vantage point, he could see almost the entire city. Its wrecked state appealed to Schrödinger's taste. It was so much uglier with the bustle of so many citizens, but now there was a peaceful, serene quietness to it.

Down on one street, Schrödinger could just make out the form of Queen Elsa of Arendelle, approaching that of her sister, Princess Anna.

"Looks like she survived it after all. Who would have thought..." the werecat said to himself.

Schrödinger looked down at the big knife he held, and the words inscribed into the side of the blade.

 _Meine Ehre heißt Treue_.

He wished he could hurry up and use it already, but the order had not been given yet. His Major knew the time still wasn't right. And as always, he trusted his judgement.

Schrödinger looked back down to observe Elsa, and was pleasantly surprised when he saw her plunging some sort of spike into the chest of her sister.

" _Auf Wiedersehen_ , _frau_ Anna."

Schrödinger held out his arm, in salute.

* * *

Elsa regretted her actions the moment the icicle slipped between her sister's ribs.

With time itself stopped, Elsa had removed her only major obstacle in the fight: Anna's incredible speed. With that out of the way, she had taken advantage of the situation and stuck a large icicle into Millennium's only remaining vampire.

The sickness in Anna's heart had been gouged out of her. But now, Elsa felt sick herself.

Anna screamed, clutching at her chest. She dropped to the ground and writhed about, staked by her own sibling.

Elsa covered her mouth with both of her gloved hands, and slowly shook her head.

"Anna...I'm sorry, I had no choice...I'm so sorry..."

She tried her best to ignore Anna's screeching, agonizing cries. But she could not look away.

Anna reached out, as though she believed Elsa could save her. And perhaps she was right.

Maybe if Elsa just walked over there and pulled out the stake, Anna could regenerate. But she knew Alucard was right. As much as it pained her, she had to say goodbye.

Anna's shouting steadily grew quieter, weaker. She twitched a few times, and then, her arm fell to its side, and her whole body went limp.

"...Anna... _I'm sorry_."

Elsa wanted to say something else, but there was nothing _to_ say.

The queen slowly walked past her sister, and started heading for the downed zeppelin.

But she was stopped in her tracks when she heard a small voice behind her, call to her.

" _E-Elsa...?_ "

* * *

"Elsa has returned, Walter has lost, and your little Nazi army has been defeated. _You've failed, Major._ "

The Major softly chuckled. "It would appear so, _fräulein_. But, appearances, as I'm sure Alucard would tell you, are deceiving."

He switched channels on the screens. This time, they all focused on a single image of the vampire Alucard, laughing as he had begun absorbing the rivers of blood that had been spilled in London. Every drop, and every last soul it contained, was slowly flowing into the vampire.

"You know, you only see this sort of thing once a century," observed the Major. "In fact, the last time this happened was back in 1898. It's been a while, _ja?_ "

Integra was now looking uneasy. What was the Major implying?

"But this time," he said, "the tragic hero Alucard... _will utterly cease to exist when the curtain falls!_ "

Integra jerked back to look at the Major.

"He'll _what?!_ "

* * *

Schrödinger sighed in contentment. Deep in his throat, he made a purr-like sound.

He gazed down to the rushing rivers of blood below him. At long last, it was his time. The ultimate reason behind his creation, his sole purpose for being brought into existence, was about to be realized.

Schrödinger laughed softly to himself as he stabbed the dagger into his own throat. He sliced across his neck, gradually removing his head.

His decapitated body fell from the building, splashing into the pools of blood, followed by his head that laughed all the way down.

* * *

" _Elsa..._ "

The queen slowly turned around. Anna was still lying on the ground, the ice still stuck through her, but this time was different.

Her eyes had turned from red, back to turquoise.

"...Anna? Anna!"

Somehow, it seemed something of Anna's true nature had survived. But it was quickly ebbing away.

Elsa knelt down at her sister's side, and put a hand on her shoulder. Anna winced.

"Elsa...what...what is all this? Where's Arendelle, where's the castle? All I r-remember...all I remember is..."

"I know, Anna. _I know._ "

Anna began to cry, as she gingerly placed a hand near her heart.

"It...it hurts. _Did you...oh my God, it hurts, Elsa..._ "

"My God, Anna, I'm so sorry. It was the only way..."

Elsa looked about. A lake of red splashed around them, over the streets, against the sides of buildings, and even through the air. Somewhere in the city, she could hear the mad laughter of Alucard as he absorbed countless souls.

"Here, Anna. Come with me, I'll...I'll carry you."

She gently picked up her sister, taking her into her arms, and started up the side of a building. Defying gravity, she slowly walked upwards, taking care to avoid the rivers of blood.

Rivers and rivers of blood, a liquid concentration of death. Death was the one thing Elsa had been surrounded by ever since she was a young woman. And she had grown tired of it. Today, she and Anna would go their own way, doing their best to go back to the way things were, back when they were still children.

Before Alucard, before Hellsing, before Millennium or the Major. Before Arendelle was frozen, before it was attacked, before the coronation, before the deaths of their parents, before the accident.

A place away from the madness, the sorrow, the death. Where there was nothing but an idyllic sort of innocence, the kind one only experienced as a child.

* * *

Alucard cackled maniacally. So much blood, so many souls were flowing into him. He had never felt such vigour before.

"This is more than I could _ever_ drink!" he exclaimed. "Well, dear Walter. Care to dance?"

"Oh yes," the butler replied. "I'll see it through to the end. I just need time. This isn't over."

Walter held up his hand, wires hanging loosely from it.

" _Major...I beg you...give me more time!_ "

Somehow, the Angel of Death could hear the Major's voice, speaking into his mind.

"Nein. _It's already done. It's too late._ "

"Take your best shot, _little boy,_ " taunted Alucard.

Walter flailed his wires in anger, cutting Alucard down the middle.

" _Ah...I fear that ship has sailed,_ " the Major said. " _You cannot win now no matter what you do._ Ja, _not to belabour the point, but this was a one-time deal. I gave you the proverbial keys to the kingdom, the blank cheque, the Golden Ticket into the chocolate factory. Your second chance to defeat Alucard, man-to-man..._ and you botched it, Walter."

True to the Major's words, Alucard healed his wounds with ease.

The gravity of the Major's speech had finally hit Walter. He stood there, silently staring at Alucard, and reflecting on how much trouble he was now in.

Walter started wondering if it wasn't futile from the start. Even when he had released all of the lives within him, Alucard still had no problems repairing the damage Walter had done to him. Even Father Alexander Anderson, with the help of a Holy Artifact of Rome, could not do any lasting damage to the vampire.

Did all of the blood, all of the souls even make a difference? Maybe Walter was fated to lose, destined to fail right from the beginning.

" _1000 Nazi vampires of the Last Battalion_. _3000 zealots fighting in the Vatican's 9th Crusade. The Iscariot Organization,"_ listed the Major. _"Our Captain. The papist, Anderson. The princess of Arendelle, Anna. And, the sum total of your own life, Walter. They were sacrificed, all of them, to allow for this moment. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Your one chance to kill Alucard, and still you couldn't best him. How many lives are sloshing around in his gullet? 1 million? 2 million perhaps? Victory is now lost to you, Walter. Your sole reason for living has just gone up in smoke._ "

Alucard's hand closed around Walter, wrenching him up by the lapels of his vest.

"You've been deluding yourself, traitor. Use your head. You couldn't win if you tried a thousand times!"

Walter didn't say anything. At this point, he had nothing left. He simply let Alucard continue to talk and consume blood.

"In the end, Anderson wasn't strong enough to beat me. And if he couldn't do it, you haven't a chance in Hell. You could face me every day for a thousand years, Walter. _And I'd tear you apart each time._ "

Amidst the blood, the head of a certain warrant officer floated closer to Alucard.

* * *

When the two sisters got to the roof, Elsa gently laid her sister back down.

Anna grasped hold of Elsa's hand.

" _Elsa...why?"_

" _Because I failed, Anna_. I failed Arendelle, I failed Mama and Papa, and...I failed you. None of this is your fault, Anna. And I would do anything to make it right again. But...I can't."

Anna had begun to sob, loudly.

"Elsa... _what's happening to me?_ "

Holding back the intensity of her own sadness, Elsa held on to her sister's hand tightly.

"It's...it's okay, Anna. You'll be okay. You're just...you'll be seeing Mama and Papa soon..."

"But..."

"They're waiting for you, Anna. Both of them are. Go to them."

"I..."

Anna reached for the sky with her other hand, mirroring that of Father Anderson in his final moments.

 _"...you're right, Elsa_... _I hear them calling for me. I can...I see them, Elsa...I'm...I should go, now. I...love you, Elsa. I always...will..._ "

What little spark remained in Anna had now passed on.

Elsa held her sister's lifeless body closer, and began to sob uncontrollably.

It was always the way. Whenever she felt that there were no tears left, life would always prove to her that she still had plenty.

" _I love you too...Anna..._ "

Nothing would ever bring her sister back, now. The queen had never felt more alone.

Anna's body, after being desecrated so many times, deserved to be properly put to rest, just like the soul that had just left it.

Elsa softly touched Anna's forehead, letting a bit of her magic into it. It spread through her, slowly turning each part of her into a perfect ice sculpture.

Before the ice could touch it, Elsa reached for Anna's brooch, shaped like two hearts. She removed it from her cape, and let the cold run over the rest of her sister's body.

With a wave of her hand, Anna dissipated into tiny crystals, and Elsa watched the wind carry them away.

"So long, Anna...we'll see each other again, someday... _you, me, Mama and Papa, we'll all see each other again...one day..._ "

* * *

"The king has no moves left," the Major declared. He snapped his fingers, the arrows on his screens matching perfectly to the movements of the blood on the streets.

"Checkmate. _I've won._ You are bested, Alucard! Accept your defeat!"

Over a speaker, Integra and the Major could hear Alucard respond.

" _Hardly. I've never been stronger. Me? Defeated?_ "

The screens changed again, just in time to show Alucard's sudden expression of surprise.

* * *

Alucard stared ahead, but he was not looking at anything physically in front of him. Instead, in his mind's eye, he saw a landscape before him

 _Wait...the sunrise. I've seen this. Is this the past, or is this happening now? I...I don't know..._

The memories of people flashed through his head, the same ones he had encountered over a hundred years before.

 _I...I remember. I remember...I've seen this dawn. That morning...the sky looked just like this. Every time I die, this is the vision that greets my eyes. And every time I think...how lovely, that sunlight, which I forsook so many centuries ago._

Alucard's body shifted into shadow, numerous eyes pouring off of him and vanishing rapidly.

* * *

"Life is but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more."

"What's this?" Integra said, doing nothing to hide the anxiety in her voice. "What have you done? Answer me!"

"It's more a question of 'where'," the Major clarified. "He absorbed the essence of warrant officer Schrödinger. But as you can see, this meal isn't quite agreeing with him, is it, _mein fräulein?_ By drinking Schrödinger's blood, Alucard has become the paradoxical cat. He is now shackled by infinite possibility. A Cheshire, chasing its unknowable tail across the endless vista. As long as he is self-aware, he is everywhere and nowhere. But that conundrum is now multiplied by the millions of lives and consciousnesses within Alucard. To wit, he is no longer capable of recognizing himself."

The Major smiled and held up a dismissive hand.

"What it all means, you ask? Alucard is kaput, gone. Not alive, dead, or even undead. He has become abstraction. He is, an imaginary number."

"Alucard!" Integra shouted. "Don't close your eyes!"

Her words did nothing. Multiple eyes around Alucard sealed themselves up.

"Heed my voice!"

A giant eye, in Alucard's centre, closed its lids.

"Alucard!"

Integra's fists shook.

" _I'm giving you an order._ "

There was no response from her servant. On the screens, he continued looking ahead at his own sunrise.

" _Don't leave me!_ " Integra pleaded. This time, Alucard responded. He shut his final two eyes.

" _I fear...I must disobey you. Farewell, Integra..._ "

Integra gritted her teeth. She could not believe what had happened. On the screens, she saw Alucard fade away, leaving behind nothing but a bloody seal on a cobblestone, and his unknotted cravat that flew in the breeze.

" _Alucard!_ "

* * *

Walter's hand reached out and snatched the cravat out of the air. Ribbon-like, it hung loosely in his fist.

A quiet giggle came out of the boy, and it soon grew into triumphant laughter.

"The great Alucard is dead! He's dead...and I still stand..."

Walter knelt, his laughter dying down to a whimper.

"Damn it all to Hell..."

He looked at the bright sunlight.

"...I wanted Alucard bested, that was the bloody point. That's what I got... _why does it feel so-_ "

 _BANG_.

Walter stumbled backwards as a bullet blew a hole clean through his torso. His own blood spattered the concrete.

Amongst the rubble, he saw Heinkel Wolfe situated there in the prone position, a bit of smoke still wafting out of her rifle, silver cross hanging from its barrel.

"So you would shoot me..." said Walter, "...slumped on a wall. A traitor's death is exactly what I deserve. Fire when ready. I shall not dodge it."

He waited, staring straight down the scope of Heinkel's gun, an amused expression on his face.

When she did not fire, Walter became more smug.

 _What's wrong, sniper?_ he mouthed. _Scared?_

" _Damn you! I'm not scared!_ " he heard Heinkel yell. She fired off four rounds, one into each of Walter's shoulders, one into his leg, and the final one into his face.

Heinkel grew angrier when she saw she had run out of ammo. Pressing on her trigger just produced unsatisfying, empty clicking.

"Just die..." she growled. Abandoning the rifle, Heinkel pulled her coat up around her and drew out her pistol.

"Don't worry," she said, replacing the magazine in her gun. "We're not done. I've got more!"

Walter watched her sprint for him. Inside, he felt a sudden change of heart.

"You can shoot at me until your clip runs dry. But... _no one dies without the Major's permission_."

He lashed out with his wires, severing Heinkel's arm and cutting her leg off from out underneath her. The Iscariot cried out in pain, falling face-first to the ground.

As Walter shuffled off the wall to his destination, he heard Heinkel scream in rage, shouting obscenities and death threats.

* * *

Elsa stood in the shadow of the _Deus Ex Machina_ , deep in thought.

A light breeze skimmed over the Snow Queen's face as she looked down at the brooch in her hand.

A brooch, heart-shaped, that belonged to her sister. It was the only physical testament to Anna's existence, the only solid form of her that Elsa had left to hold onto, and she would never forget her, never let go.

Elsa shut her eyes, closing her hand on the brooch. She stowed it away in the folds of her cloak; she could not bear to look at it any longer at that moment.

" _Anna..._ "

She softly shook, but she forced her tears back.

"Stiff upper lip, Your Majesty."

Walter headed past her, dragging his feet every step of the way. He leaned against a wall for support, and left a trail of his own blood in his wake.

The boy was grabbed by the throat and slammed against the wall. He choked and struggled, but he could not break Elsa's powerful grip.

Even through her gloves, Elsa could feel Walter's soft flesh. He was so fragile now, and a simple twitch of her fingers would be enough to tear through him.

It would be _so_ easy.

" _Give me one reason why I shouldn't rip your throat out right now, traitor._ "

"Y-you...wasting...your time," Walter managed to gasp out. He wheezed, desperate for oxygen.

With the slightest increase in pressure, Elsa tightened her grip. Walter gasped even louder, flailing his legs about.

"Do you know what I am, Walter? What I can do? The countless number of slow, painful ways I could kill you? I was around before you, and I'll be around long after you're gone. I am Elsa, queen of Arendelle, and the cold itself is my servant. And what are you? _A butler?_ "

The boy's face started to turn red, and a few tears rolled down his face. But he finally found relief, in the form of being thrown against a building by a wrathful Snow Queen. He smacked against the opposite wall, landing face-down.

"Like I said...waste of time," coughed Walter. "I'm on my way out anyway..."

Elsa reached out with her power, concentrating on Walter's life energy, and saw the dim, fading aura that surrounded him.

He was right.

"Where is Alucard?" Elsa demanded.

"Dead."

"...what?"

"You heard me. Dead."

"And how could-"

"I guess you could say he was poisoned. Regardless, you needn't worry about him right now. I still have unfinished business to take care of, Elsa. And I think..."

He cast some wires skyward, latching onto the top of the airship.

"...you're just the person to help me with it."

* * *

"Well, it's nice to finally meet you in person, child."

The command room of the _Deus Ex Machina_ was in shambles now. The Captain was dead, the screens were broken, the lights no longer worked, and the floor was covered in shards of glass. There was now only Integra Hellsing, rejoined by her servant Seras Victoria, and the Major, still situated in his chair.

"You joined us at the absolute perfect moment," the Major said to Seras. "I am at something of a crossroads, it seems. Alucard has been my archenemy for many decades. But now the position of archenemy has fallen vacant."

He stood up, and gestured to the two.

"Seeing as how you're his closest compatriots, I think the title of archenemy should fall upon your shoulders."

The Major spread his arms wide.

"Don't be shy, ladies! Your nemesis is here, right in front of you! Don't squander this moment! Wreck delicious revenge upon me... _or am I too much for you?_ "

Integra was not one to back down.

"Do it, Seras. Shoot him. Now."

She pointed to the Major

"Fire! _Fire upon this madman!_ "

Seras yelled, and raised her gun.

* * *

"Is it over?"

The Doctor stood in what remained of his laboratory. He listened to the sounds of explosions, of guns being fired elsewhere in the airship as he thought aloud to himself.

"No, it isn't. It can't be."

He peered at the various notes he had posted along the walls of his lab, detailing all of the gruesome procedures he had performed, the successes of his forbidden experiments.

"Technology and science speed ahead, neck and neck, each of them hounds in the elusive hunt for knowledge. So what is missing? What component, what spark, what alchemy?"

He activated a heavy set of doors, and they swung open. Inside hung a red curtain, and in the middle, a metal plate. Inscribed on it were words to commemorate the Third Reich's first forays into occult science.

 _No. Anfang. The Shi._

"The trail is cold. The quarry eludes me. But I mustn't lose heart..."

Doc grabbed a medical bag and started stuffing as many of his notes into it as he could.

"...I will gather my hounds, and live to hunt another day! _And soon, the world will tremble when they behold what I have wrought! Science that shatters reason, and puts the miracles of old to shame..._ "

"Leaving so soon, are we, _herr_ Doctor?"

He looked back, and saw Hellsing's Angel of Death sitting against a table.

"Your best wasn't good enough. The least you could do is lose with some dignity and grace."

"Walter...what are you saying?"

The boy looked into the Doctor's multi-lensed spectacles.

"For all your talk of a Thousand Year Reich, we bollocksed this up pretty good, didn't we?"

"You... _broken piece of shit!_ "

"Really Doctor, you're quite the piece of shit yourself. All your toys have fallen short, myself included. How could we not? Like _The Doctor in Spite of Himself_ , your science wasn't good enough. Don't you understand? Your life's a farce."

"A farce? You dare denigrate my work by comparing it to some bitter fluff by Molière?"

"Molière? You should be so lucky," laughed Walter. "We are the evening's entertainment. And I...just wanted to do something with my time on the stage, worthy of applause."

Walter reached up, gripping the edge of the table. He managed to stand up, but not before his degenerating hand broke under his own weight.

"Life is so damned cruel," Walter remarked. "Elsa and Alucard coped with it for centuries. I truly don't envy them that."

"You're nothing more than a broken turncoat!" the Doctor shot back. "How _dare_ you address me like this! You would lay in a heap and mock us? You are a weapon, nothing but a tool in the hands of your betters! If you look down your nose at our plans, I'll cut it off!"

The Doctor was getting angrier with every word.

"I will not allow you to mock the work I have done! I am a visionary! I am a medical prophet! What I have done with my vampires, is just the beginning!"

He pointed back to the red curtain.

" _WE WILL SURPASS HER! ALUCARD'S BEST WILL BE NOTHING!_ "

Walter could only smile.

"As lovely as that sounds, none of it is going to happen, Doctor. Your research dies with you tonight."

" _SHUT YOUR MOUTH!_ "

The Doctor pulled out his remote, but he was nowhere near fast enough. Wires closed around his arm and sliced it apart.

Doc shrieked and pulled the curtain down as he fell. From within its chamber, a skeleton tumbled out.

" _Mina Harker_...the ghoulish centrepiece of your sad ambitions. The only person to have ever been fed upon by Alucard, and then feed upon him in turn. Quite the trick. They say she returned to normal after Professor Van Helsing defeated her master, but the beast never quite let go. Alucard's essence hides deep in her bones. And so it waited out the long years in slumber, immune to time, to the Eucharist, to Holy Water, even to the Cross itself. A microscopic transgression against God. I suppose you couldn't help yourselves, really...awakening it, like you did. You dug up her coffin like a common graverobber, and did things to her bones that should never be spoken of."

The fires that had started at the bottom of the _Deus Ex Machina_ had now spread all the way into the room the two were in. Debris fell down around him, but Walter ignored it.

"When everything is said and done, all you did was crank out two-bit imitations. If that doesn't qualify as a farce, then I don't know what does."

He looked down at the Doctor without sympathy, watching him squirm and groan. He was such a wretched thing, more wretched than even Walter was.

Walter glanced over to the skeleton, which the fire had already spread to and had begun to incinerate.

"The show is over, Mina. The curtain's falling, we've taken our bows. It's high time we make our exit."

A part of the ceiling was cut apart by a blue strand, and it crashed down on the Doctor. He had time for one last scream before it smashed onto him, silencing him forever.

"Perfect shot."

Walter collapsed, slumping back against the table. In the corner of his eye, he saw Elsa step out from the only shadowy corner left that had not been lit up by the flames.

"Got a fag?" Walter asked her.

"What?"

"A cigarette, you know, a smoke. Didn't they have them back in Arendelle...never mind, found one."

Walter took a single cigarette out of his pocket, dipped the end in a flame, and took a drag.

"This English gentleman persona you had..." started Elsa.

"Yes?"

"I'm very disappointed to know that was just an act. You reminded me so much of my own butler, back in Arendelle..."

"It wasn't an act. At least...not all the time. To tell you the truth...it was kind of fun. Being a part of Hellsing, fighting Nazis, killing vampires and werewolves and poltergeists and demons and witches alongside Alucard...it was a good show, a damned blast."

"Then why did you throw it all away?"

"I thought I'd...never mind, it's personal. You wouldn't understand, Elsa, any more than I would understand you and your sister."

Walter puffed out smoke.

"Besides, it's not like I'm needed anymore. Hellsing has _you_ , now. Compared to a Winter Goddess, who needs a kid and his toy puppet strings?"

"Then it looks like this really is the end for you...what are you going to do now?"

"I just think I'll rest here for a bit, before I head on...I imagine Integra and Seras are in the command room by now. Just head straight from here until you come to a four-way path, take a right, then a left, and then another right. That should get you there."

Elsa stepped aside, following Walter's direction. Before she opened the door, she looked back.

"Farewell, Walter... _farewell._ "

The boy raised a hand.

"Farewell. And so long."

Walter waited until the door had shut.

"It's a damn shame," he said to himself. "I'd hoped to give Alucard a proper send-off."

He took one last drag, and exhaled. In his mind, in that moment, he had went back to his old self, the old British gentleman who diligently served his master and country. Perhaps that really was his true self all along.

" _We had a good run...Master Integra..._ "

* * *

Elsa punched a jammed door aside, and was greeted by the sight of Seras Victoria and her master, Integra Hellsing. Integra's eye had been injured, and blood now trickled from it.

Elsa saw the Major's broken body, full of machinery, being consumed by flame. A big grin was on his face, frozen in a death mask. Even in death, he faced it all with a nonchalant smile.

Though he may have thought otherwise, all along the Major was just a monster in the guise of a human. Just like Alucard. Just like Seras.

Just like Elsa.

Integra looked disheartened, as though she had felt Walter's passing.

"The Angel of Death is no more. Seras...Elsa..."

"Yes," they said almost in unison.

" _I'm tired. Let us return home...to what's left of it._ "

Seras took hold of Integra, and leapt upwards, flying through the upper reaches of the airship. Elsa followed close behind.

The three of them flew out of the ship, outrunning the fiery explosions by a fair margin. Upon their exit, the bright light of the morning sun hit their eyes.

As the three Hellsing women flew onward to home, Elsa briefly glimpsed the objects littered across the street that the sun now made plainly visible.

A knife. An archbishop's stole. A necktie. A broken medal. A musket. Playing cards. Glasses. A bayonet. A monocle.

A bloody sigil, inscribed on the pavement. And a handful of ice crystals, the last of which were carried away in the wind.

* * *

"Fences halt! That's the match! Sir Integra wins!"

Integra removed her mask, letting her long hair flow out. While its colour had changed from blonde to almost white with age, it still maintained a vitality in its own right.

"That was truly magnificent," clapped the successor of Enrico Maxwell, Chief Makube. "The years have robbed you of none of your vigour with a blade."

"Don't you start," Integra replied. She looked at Makube and his associates with her one good eye, her other now hidden behind an eyepatch. "I asked for Section XIII to wait in the lobby."

"Yes, you did. But it's not in my nature to sit and await notice from a host. And besides, when no one could even be bothered to offer us any tea, I had to find my own amusement."

"Well, you can't have the run of the place, papist. Back to the lobby with you."

Behind her, Seras nodded in agreement.

"Yes, fine," said Makube, shrugging. "I meant no disrespect."

He and his assistant headed for the door.

Following in their wake, Heinkel glared at Integra and her servant.

No sooner had they opened the door, than they found themselves under the scrutiny of an icy queen.

Arms folded, Elsa stared at them.

"We were just heading back to the lobby, miss..."

"I've seen enough of you people to know what you're usually up to," said Elsa. "I suggest you head back now, before I suspect you of something."

"Yes, of course..."

Makube gestured for his assistant and Heinkel to follow him down the hallway. When they were out of Elsa's sight (and hopefully out of earshot), his assistant spoke up.

"Chief Makube. The security in this building's as bad as ever. We could conquer them right now."

"So naive," Heinkel said. "There's more to this place than you know."

Makube tore a piece of wallpaper from the wall. Underneath was a layer of shadow, that shouted back at them in a riled French accent.

" _Ow! Dammit, that hurt! What the Hell was that for?!_ "

The shadow moved on down the hall, sweeping over every surface.

The assistant priest looked up in amazement.

"Oh my God..."

"Meet Seras Victoria's shadow," Makube said. "It wraps around the whole mansion and every person in sight."

"We would die...but we would take out half of the Round Table before we did, Chief Makube," remarked Heinkel.

"Another day, perhaps. Hellsing still has that damnable snow goddess in their employ, and I do believe I saw several of her heathen ice creations patrolling this mansion as guards. The Church is still licking its wounds. The losses we incurred in the 9th Crusade still cut us to the very marrow. For now...we bide our time."

They continued on their way down the hall, heading back to the lobby.

"We've waited 500 years. At this point, what is another one or two hundred, right? The 10th Crusade will set all of this right..."

* * *

Integra stepped out into the hall.

"They didn't give you any trouble, did they?" she asked Elsa.

"No. Those Iscariots couldn't give me any trouble if they tried."

"Good. But I know they're up to something, they always are. I would hate to have to face a full-scale attack by Section XIII right now, especially with...w-with..."

Integra burst into a coughing fit, hunching over, covering her mouth with one hand and holding her side with the other. She hacked up some dark phlegm, part of the buildup in her lungs.

"You should really stop smoking those things, master."

"Never you mind, Elsa..."

Integra drew out a cigar and lit it.

"...maybe I will quit this habit one day, but not today."

"Master?"

Seras Victoria poked her head out into the hall.

"What is it, Seras?"

"Um...I just wanted to remind you that there's still that pile of paperwork in your office upstairs that needs to be filled out."

" _That's the second time you've reminded me today Seras! Do you think I'm going senile?_ "

Seras looked a bit scared.

"I...uh, no, I just wanted to make sure you remem _-_ "

" _I can remember just fine, thank you very much! My mind is just as sharp as it was 30 years ago!_ "

Integra turned to Elsa, fuming.

"I'll be up in my office. Be sure to bring up some tea when you have the time. Lemon. And don't forget the sugar."

She stormed away, grumbling under her breath.

" _Bloody vampires...acts just like Alucard...can remember my own damn schedule..._ "

Seras and Elsa waited until she was out of range, then doubled over in laughter.

* * *

The basement of the Hellsing mansion had always been a lonely place, especially at night, with its sole occupant now gone from the face of the Earth.

The single expansive room was barred by a heavy locked metal door that was further secured by straps and chains. But tonight, something still managed to enter.

A black coffin lay inside, and resting on top of it was the cobblestone stained with red. They were the only two things a certain vampire had left behind.

A few crimson drops fell out of nowhere and settled onto the coffin's lid. They shifted and expanded, forming a bloody set of words on top of the coffin. If anyone was around to read them, they would have seen a rather peculiar sentence.

 _The Bird of Hermes Is My Name, Eating My Wings To Make Me Tame._

* * *

"Mr. Bernadotte, yet again, please stop smoking inside me."

" _You're such a killjoy,_ mon chère."

"Whatever, just stop smoking. I can still smell it and it's awful."

" _What about that master of yours, hm? She smokes all the time and I never hear a peep out of you about it._ "

"She's my master. You aren't. Now be quiet."

The soul of Pip Bernadotte quieted down within Seras. She peered at Elsa, who was gazing at something heart-shaped in her hand.

"Elsa..."

"Hm?"

"...if it's not my business, then never mind. But I'm curious, I'm just wondering why you always look at that thing."

Elsa sighed and put it away. "It's just a reminder, Seras. A reminder of my past, of my family. Something to keep me moving forward."

"Oh...I'm sorry..."

"Don't be. It was all my fault."

An awkward silence permeated the dark hallway. Standing outside the bedroom of Integra Hellsing as her guards every night, they were used to awkward silence.

Somehow, tonight was different. Tonight felt slightly more tense than usual, but neither of them could put their finger on it.

The silence was broken, unexpectedly, by loud gunshots, coming from Integra's room. Elsa and Seras reacted instantly.

" _Are we under attack again master?!_ " Seras yelled, guns in tow as she kicked open the door. She flicked on the light.

Elsa spotted something in the corner, and shot a cluster of razor-sharp snowflakes from her hands. Like knives, they pierced deep into the intruder's body.

A normal person would have died right there, or at the very least screamed first. But the thing that Elsa had hit just laughed and shrugged off the damage.

"Such a violent welcome," said Alucard. "What an honour. I feared you'd forgotten about me."

" _You're back!_ " Seras exclaimed.

"You're a bit later than I expected, Alucard. Care to explain yourself?" asked Integra.

" _Hmph._ Killing oneself takes some time. And in my situation, there was a lot of self to kill. 3 million, 424 thousand, 867 souls were within me. Clouding my mind, denying me awareness...I butchered them all, until only I remained."

As he spoke, Elsa noticed his eyes had changed. They seemed brighter now.

"I have returned here..." he said, "...but I'm also always nowhere. It's a conundrum. The truth of it is... _I am everywhere._ "

"You have returned...and in the meantime, I have grown old and grey."

Alucard smiled.

" _Do_ forgive me."

Integra turned, and gave a knowing smile back at her servant.

"Were you skulking in here...to drink my blood?"

"You need to ask?" laughed Alucard. "I haven't eaten anything in 30 years. I'm famished."

Seras and Elsa saw Integra get up off her bed, and approach Alucard.

"The young woman you knew is gone. I'm...ancient," she said sadly.

" _And I'm not?_ "

His reply made Integra smile again. She bit down on her ring finger, and held it out above Alucard.

"You're home, my dear Count," Integra assured.

Alucard stared back at her.

" _Back forevermore, my Countess._ "

Elsa watched the drop of blood travel down Integra's finger, and fall down to Alucard.

A drop of blood, red like the moon outside.

Elsa felt the heart-shaped pendant in her pocket, and looked outside the window at the moon.

A blood moon, a rare occurrence. Just like the return of a lost valuable to its owner, or the reunion of long-lost friends.

Elsa knew, one day, she would reunite with her own.


End file.
